Laying siege to Dongletown

When I first bought a bad laptop in 2014, it had some USB-C ports and nothing else, and so I had to buy some dongles. I eventually spent $500 on dongles. I got dongles for every video format, dongles for my webcam, dongles for my camera, dongles for my podcast rig. Then I wrote a zine called Welcome to Dongletown that listed all of the dongles I had to buy.

Three years later, I now own a new laptop that, in a fit of mind-blinding innovation, actually has some ports on it. Then I sold some zines at Chicago Zine Fest, one of which was Welcome to Dongletown. I don’t usually think much about dongles these days, but I definitely do think about the fellow who picked up a copy of Welcome to Dongletown, flipped through it, and said “This makes me furious.”

“Well, I’m glad you feel something,” I said. He read some more, put it down, and walked away, not buying anything. I deserved this.

A few weeks later, I woke up and chose violence. I opened my todo manager and took note of every single device I still have that does not connect via USB-C or natively to both my laptop & server. And now I am on the warpath. All of these will, heaven willing, be replaced with USB-C equivalents by the end of the year. I am converting the entire household to exclusively USB-C devices. No weird charging cords. No proprietary plugs. No docks. Just pure, glorious USB-C cables the whole way down, forever – and a commitment never to backslide.