First of all, please stop with : “there is usb-c adapters, so blah blah”. This is not possible those are only adapters because of USB output is digital, 3.5mm headphone needs analog input. So you can’t adapt the signal, you have to convert it. Those so-called adapters are in reality digital/audio converters, with micro electronics, chips, (so cobalt, silicium, etc…). They are almost the same ecological problem than bluetooth headset with no batteries.
If I had no choice for buying this kind of things, i would prefer the bluetooth ones. This is still a very bad solution, an useless waste of money, natural ressources and energy, but at least I would have the wireless comfort and I will not break my usb port because of the perpetuals mechanicals constraints of an USB dac constantly plugged in.
Secondly, @anon9989719 this subject is not about “pro or cons the technological progress”, but, discussing about “what kind of technological progress”. You mentioned earlier your high speed internet access. This is a pretty good exemple.
For high speed internet access you have 2 solutions : the wired one with optical fiber and on the other hand, the wireless one with 4G/5G, (or the most insane ones like Starlink, Kuiper or other monstrosities…).
With the optical fiber, you’re able to build a solid network, able to work with quite-low power consumption, transmitting every packets with no loss to the end user as far as he is from the emission point and futureproof, like was the copper line in its times, because it will cheaply accepts the internet speeds to come on the same network for at least the 50 next years.
With 4G/5G technologies, you need lots and lots of high-power consumption emission points, with poor access quality if you’re not in the good range, packets loss, (and bad data security but this is another subject). Nowadays, it cost 5 times more energy and hardware for LTE network than for the optical fiber for only 10% of internet speed the fiber can offer. Equipments are outdoor, so you have to change them very often, with so much more hardware waste, etc…
The goal is not to block the progress, but just to find the good way, in terms of resources, ecological impacts and sustainability to achieve it. This is the same for this question of how to make an hand-free voice call and how to keep the progress that was made to have in one device a phone, a computer, a camera and a good music player, because, if not, this is not even progress, this is a regression.