Yea, would have been a neat alternative. But from my perspective, it lacks a couple of the benefits of USB vs. what we had before. First, data and power in on

Yea, would have been a neat alternative. But from my perspective, it lacks a couple of the benefits of USB vs. what we had before. First, data and power in one connector. Sure, some very low-power devices (like mice) could cheat using the DTR or RTS pins of a serial port, but that wasn't nearly enough for a scanner or hard disk. Second, (mostly) no-nonsense connection of new devices. Yes, installing USB drivers sucked, but plugging in a cable is still easier that going though menus to pair a wireless device[1]. Even in Windows XP, plugging in a thumb drive pretty much "just worked". From a practical usability point of view, I think WUSB was a regression for a large class of devices: You still needed a power cable for anything not battery powered[2] like a thumb drive or scanner, and you still needed to go through menus to re-mount a device not permanently attached to your computer (like a camera or GPS). The remaining use-cases, like game controllers, headsets, keyboards and mice were already (barely-)adequately addressed by Bluetooth, which existed before WUSB. [1] IMHO Apple's "magical" AirPods juuuust barely meet the threshold of "not completely annoying" when switching devices. And that's, what, 15 years after Bluetooth was invented? [2] Strangely, USB has become the de facto low-voltage DC charging standard. It would be pretty funny to power your WUSB hard disk from a USB port.