It's 2023 and USB-C is even more of a mess | Hacker News Reader

It's 2023 and USB-C is even more of a mess

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8 pointsthunderbong5 comments

It's hard to imagine how this kind of problem gets solved, but I think it's a good example of a problem that I've seen in software again and again: defining the technical capabilities of a platform is separate from defining the interface that should be provided to consumers.

In this case, imagine that the working group defining USB5 had a complementary working group that picked a sensible set of capabilities and said: your cable will either support power at X watts and data transfer at Y GB/s or it will support Z watts and N GB/s, or it will NOT be considered a standard USB5 cable. (maybe there are more than two specs but you get the idea).

One of the traps for technical people is assuming that everyone will understand/care about the details in their head, and be able to make good decisions for end users. Your system is not that important to other people and you should always provide best practices and worst practices (if you do this you better be an expert who understands the tradeoffs). You're not done until you've provided guide rails for the people using your tech, and that becomes more important the less technical they are.

Type C cable come with my external SSD won't transfer data with my phone.

20Gbps Type C cable that I brought for my phone won't transfer data with my external SSD.

Type C cable come with LG and Dell monitor are compatible with everything include Macbook.

But Apple monitor work exclusively for Apple computer. Phone screen output? Nope. Tablet screen output? Nope.

I have no clue what is going on.

The newer Apple monitors use Thunderbolt 3, so unless your computer supports video output over TB3 on the USB-C port, it won't work. Macbook also supports video output using DisplayPort on the USB-C ports, so that's why it works with Dell and LG monitors as well as Apple monitors.

Iirc, TB video is just DisplayPort - TB 1 & 2 even used the mini DisplayPort connector before the switch to USB-C.

It is unfortunate. From 2014-2018 / 2019 ish. 90% of HN comments were for cashless society and to be replaced by Credit Card or Apple Pay. Silicon Valley were in full PR mode about going fully cashless. It wasn't until 2019/2020 did the tide start to turn.

I have been ranting abut USB-C since 2016. I gave them some benefits of doubt during 2015 in the hope the mess I foresee wont happen. And from 2015 ( arguably 2014 ) all the way to 2020 90% of HN was pretty much pro USB-C. Suggesting it is the one to rule it all. It wasn't until recently did we start seeing the mess we are in.

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