Many of the cables/dongles are long and skinny relative to the tiny metal connector, placing a fair amount of torque on the port. A number of the cables I've used are poorly fitting as well, exacerbating the mechanical strain.
A good example of this problem is the Yubi-4C. The connector protrudes about half a mm from the port and it has enough play to wiggle up/down/left/right. Having had to replace the logic board and I/O boards on my 2016 MBP 15 within 3 months due to port damage, I get a bit nervous when I notice fit problems like this.
Aside from outright damaging the ports, poorly built cables seem to wreak havoc on the mechanism that grips cables on Apple machines. Prior to the board replacement, the Apple power cables would gradually come loose by their own weight. Fortunately, the Geniuses did agree that this was a problem and replaced the top case along with the guts of my computer.