[anpill]

But where would they fit that? The sides of today's laptops already have a whopping one port! /s

Why did hardware switches die out?

[tonylemesmer]

they break. and only a small proportion of customers demand them. (speculation)

[jimhefferon]

I have a slide switch on my Dell laptop to turn off wifi. I've never known anyone to use it. (Not to say there isn't a use, but rather to say that a major vendor puts it in despite that the average customer would not use it, and it doesn't seem to break.)

[hanklazard]

We had similar laptops in a clinic where I worked a few years ago. The hardware switch for wifi caused hours of confusion and many unnecessary calls to the IT service--I never understood the use-case. Is there one?

[Tiksi]

Most of those slide switches aren't actually hardware switches, they just tell the firmware/driver to disable it.