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Comment by sq_ | Hacker News Reader

100% agree with you on how convenient USB-C can make things. Being able to carry one 60-90w brick with multiple USB-C PD outputs and charge pretty much all of my devices off of it is amazing.

On the other hand, I would say that all of us here on HN probably aren't the target audience for this article. Collectively, I'd say HN readers are likely to understand that different USB-C bricks, cables, and devices are going to support different things and research our purchases accordingly. The article seems to be more targeted at people who will grab a $3.50 gas station cable and expect it to charge their phone at 18w and laptop at 65w.

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> The article seems to be more targeted at people who will grab a $3.50 gas station cable and expect it to charge their phone at 18w and laptop at 65w.

In their defense, all those cable look exactly the same.

I haven't gone through the whole usb-c/thunderbolt reading yet [1], so I might as well make the same mistake. And the fact that you're supposed to do the whole reading thing is probably the source of the problem.

You see the same plug, same colors on the connector, you EXPECT to work the same.

[1] Most of my devices are micro-usb, my Dell work laptop charges via thunderbolt/usb-c but I've got the Dell dock for that.

Yeah, I definitely understand the complaint. As I said in another comment, I think we're slowly approaching the point where you can mostly expect them to work the same. When the first Macbooks and other laptops with USB-C arrived, compatibility and adoption was awful, and we're finally getting to a point where things are less awful.

Would it have been better if they all worked exactly the same from day 1? Absolutely. Do I think we'll get to a point where USB-C is categorically better than what came before? Also yes.

Are those people who buy cheap cables in the wrong?

Maybe I do need to buy those gold-plated cables.

I wouldn't say that they're in the wrong, but I would expect people to have some expectations about the quality, durability, and capabilities of a super cheap cable.

Overall, I don't think it's entirely unfair to expect people to pay $10-15 for a quality cable, especially since these modern cables are often expected to carry significant amounts of power.

No, $10 for a cable with significant amount of power is unreasonable. If you ever dealt with some power cables, you'd know that 1 meter of the highest quality copper power cable for continuous delivery of say 15 amps (3 x 1.5 mm^2) shouldn't cost more than $0.6. And that's enough for 300 watts of power given 20 volts. But you probably will never see that much copper in a USB-C cable, at best you'll see third of that and with a flimsy insulation, which costs two orders of magnitude less than $10.

Getting into anecdotal evidence here, but, as a consumer, I've seen what happens to the hyper-cheap cables after a few weeks to months of use: they tend to fall apart or fail in fun and interesting ways.

On the other hand, I have never had a $10-15 Anker or some other brand cable fail on me without serious abuse. As a consumer, I'll happily pay the extra few dollars for the expectation of durability, a warranty of some sort, and the knowledge that the cable should Just Work with most of my devices, even if I know that the price is way out of proportion to the materials involved.

Can't speak for all other consumers, of course, but I would expect that many have figured the same thing out over the years of purchasing Micro USB/Lightning/30pin/etc cables.

$1 for the 2m of cable, another $1 for plugs, $1 for manufacturing costs/packaging/shipping = $3. This results in a market price of $10 (30% goes to the retailer [amazon FBA fees etc], 30% goes to the manufacturer and these have to cover salaries, office space, tax, etc etc)

Power cords aren't that different - you can buy cheap and crap 6ft cords for $3 that won't last or you can buy construction-site worthy cords that get thrown around for $30+

Most charging cables get treated more like a power cord on a construction site - they don't just get plugged in and hidden behind a TV so the quality of the shielding and connectors is paramount to withstand the twisting and strains

But I think this is a problem when the elkjøp guy gave my wife the wrong usb-c cable for charging her phone.

Part of me thinks we're just in a very long, drawn-out adoption process for all of this.

Things seem to have gotten much better since the first USB-C only Macbooks and other devices started to arrive, so my hope is that we'll reach a point within another few years where one can pretty confidently purchase a cable or charger and assume it'll work with a standard device. It certainly does suck for now that you can end up with the wrong thing if you don't do a ton of compatibility checking.

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