We might at least consider whether issues such as this are being addressed on the appropriate level. Just consider, that's all, be opened minded to various possibilities.
This original poster, like so many others, reports that something that used to work routinely for years no longer works since they have "upgraded". In order for this progression to be labeled "progress" we need to examine what has been gained in exchange for the confusion and hassle being inflicted on seemingly millions of people.
Best I can tell, corrections welcomed, the primary pitch for the new Macs is that they are faster. If generally correct, how many of all the people being affected actually need a faster Mac? How many are using their Macs for basic operations like web surfing, email and family photos, tasks easily completely on ten year old Macs? And how many users are engaged in more advanced operations where processor speed really does make a decisive difference?
As example, the SSD drives appear to be faster, at the cost of being smaller and more expensive. This requires many users to buy external drives, and split their files up across multiple drives instead of having them all in one place. Such division makes backups more work, and thus calamities more likely. Is the increased speed worth it?
No sooner will we all get used to this M1 business that M1 will be discarded for some new technology. Once we finally get everything working with Big Sur it too will be replaced by some new version of OSX, and a new avalanche of such "my stuff no longer works" posts will begin again.
Are we really getting substantial meaningful benefit from this never ending process of change? Is it really "progress" to have to continually get new dongles, ports, external devices, and ride the OSX learning curve etc etc just to be able to do what we've already been able to do for quite some time?
Questions such as those posed by the original poster can be addressed one by one by one from now until the end of time. Or, we could stand back, take a wider view, and consider the process of change as a whole.
Taking the wider view is generally considered mere philosophy, just a rant. Ok, but philosophy is a process of examining the fundamental assumptions which our choices and behaviors are built upon. In any endeavor, if our core assumptions are flawed, that can lead to a great deal of effort being wasted. Examining the assumptions underlying our choices can be a highly efficient manner of solving problems.
The core assumption here seems to be that we need these new speeds. And thus a great deal of effort is being invested in helping millions of Mac users adapt to a never ending stream of new hardware and software.
If that core assumption is incorrect, if we don't really need the new speeds, then a great deal of effort is being wasted, and a great deal of confusion and calamity is being experienced for no particularly good reason.
Do we really need to go where Apple is taking us? If our Macs were 100x faster, what would we do with that speed? How would we benefit?
The typical forum user will conclude that such posts do not address their particular problem, and thus are of no interest. Ok, fair enough. Every reader will probably conclude, if this isn't about me personally, so who cares? The price tag for taking such a narrow view is that we'll all still be here trying to solve such arguably unnecessary problems 20 years from now.
How is that helpful?
