they had very flat (on one side) Ethernet pigtails in the PCMCIA days.

Those sucked so hard, were extremely finicky to plug in, and I was in constant terror of breaking it. Even the popout jack things were horrific in that respect.

I'm 1000% for wired connections where possible, but for laptops too thin to have one built inside of the frame the best choice is a proper docking station, ideally with a cable that isn't impossible to user replace.

Oh god, bringing back memories I don't want. They were always so fragile.