Additional clarification: Manjaros main target user is a new Linux user. Base-devel is not installed by default, because AUR is not supported by Manjaro team. If you want to build your own packages, that’s fine and good, but then we have very little ways of making sure that our updates don’t break your rolling release system. By compiling your own packages, you are taking the full responsibility of your own system. This is not something that we want a new user to stumble into by accident. This is not removal of user choice, but we require the user to make this choice explicitly.
I hope you have a great time with Mint! It is an excellent distro in its own right. If you wish to still try Manjaro, this thread has provided multiple suggestions on how to get the wifi-dongle working.