I did think about that and ultimately did do that. It's just not what the hardware could do, and it's a crappy solution. I don't often wander around with spare

I did think about that and ultimately did do that. It's just not what the hardware could do, and it's a crappy solution. I don't often wander around with spare USB NICs, but a double ended type-C is in my standard kit. There's no hardware reason why two type-C ports couldn't adopt host and device roles and become a NIC. Could be an RNDIS class endpoint or emulate one of the ultra common ASIX ICs. That's basically what my phone does when USB tethering. Why does my desktop computer do less?