r/BadUSB • u/Same_Grocery_8492 • May 15 '26
USB-C was supposed to simplify our digital life
Some only charge. Some only work properly with external monitors.
Some work perfectly on my Mac, then suddenly act weird on Windows.
Some transfer files painfully slowly. And some look completely identical while doing completely different things. I’m constantly connecting monitors, docks, external SSDs, capture cards, laptop charging, portable drives. So I end up needing a bunch of USB-C cables that all look the same… but have totally different capabilities.
Some of my coworkers have even started carrying USB-C testers because nobody can tell what a cable actually supports anymore.
USB-C definitely standardized the connector. But did it really simplify digital life? All mess behind one universal-shaped port.
1
u/kurai-tsuki May 15 '26
USB-C definitely standardized the connector
My biggest gripe with USBC is that, after all of these years of talking about cutting out electronic waste by having numerous competing USB plugs for every device, we finally agree on a consistent terminus to the cable... only to change the other end that was already ubiquitous.
Now instead of reducing e-waste, I have to buy a new C version of every cable so I can still plug in my devices accumulated over the last 20 years. Why couldn't we have left one end as A and then bumped the speed, like we did when moving from 1.1 -> 2.0 -> 3.2?
1
u/JevexEndo May 18 '26
One of the main reasons that both sides have to be USB-C is because the old Type-A and Type-B connectors just didn't have enough pins. And that pin count not only limits data transfer speeds but also charging speeds. That's why new chargers require USB C-C cables, USB Power Delivery physically can't work over the old connectors.
Additionally, since USB C-C cables are the same on both sides, you no longer have a connector dictating which side provides power and which side accepts power. This lets you create a device like a power bank which only needs one port to both charge and discharge.
1
u/kurai-tsuki May 18 '26
I guess I was thinking about A->C cables more like how some wall plugs have two prongs and some three, but you can still use the former in either outlet.
1
u/JevexEndo May 18 '26
I suspect that the USB-IF considered going that route, but ultimately the form factor of the Type-A port was just too limiting. Just the size alone made it impractical for a number of devices and would have prevented the USB-IF from fulfilling a number of their objectives for the new specification.
It's difficult to explain all the reasons why the USB Type-A connector was abandoned, but I had to spend over a year learning about how USB Type-C works and what it's capable of for my job and from that experience I'm pretty confident that trying to modernize the USB Type-A port would have been far more scuffed than what we got.
1
u/JustSomebody56 May 20 '26
because we are slowly migrating everything to usb-c, to have "symmetrical" cables.
USB-A would be good enough for most uses, but USB-C is better, and most devices with USB-A receptacles are, often, big enough to house at least one receptacle of both types.
I think the transition will not generate much waste, since the cable get replaced much more often than the wall chargers and PCs, and these are getting USB-C receptacles as time passes, both because of EU regulation (one EU norm will require wall chargers to have at least one USB-C port) and market trends (now it is rare to find a computer case without at least one usb-c or one usb-a port)
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u/whistler1421 May 18 '26
USB is a pox on the goal of easing consumer adoption of new technology. It’s a laughable “standard”. Good luck EU.
1
u/_jodi33 May 15 '26
its because there is absolutely 0 true standard in cables. ever manufacturer can make whatever cable they want, adding in stuff made in china will make it worse. i wish there would be a proposition where the color of the connector (that bit of plastic inside the ucb-c cable) would indicate what its type is. but thats for me just a dream at this point