In an alternate world, Ethernet took on the role of the universal serial bus, and we have laptops that charge via PoE, but only possible on one of their ports (the others are usable for peripherals --- with protocols running over Ethernet too, of course.) But the same confusion regarding power and speed capabilities exists.

It would help if computers / phones had an easy way to just identify a cable when you plug it in. Is this hard to do or just something normal people never care about?

Having a standard plug is great, I hope we stick with it for decades and gradually the situation will improve as everyone gets used to the standard.

USB-C gets rid of all the stupid previous decisions on the physical connectors (orientation required but not obvious, fragile clips, too large, too small), the physical side of things is now set and hopefully all devices, chargers and outlets will now converge on usb-c.

Yes getting the right cable can make a difference but the situation is so much better than before, partly because phone manufacturers were forced by the EU to adopt one connector early one. I’m so glad Apple’s proprietary connector is gone.

Feels like the appropriate place to put this link: https://www.lttstore.com/products/ltt-truespec-cable-usb-typ...

Yup. I have a work laptop that is meant to charge via USB ... But only one of the two ports will charge ... They are right beside each other! An evil trick at the office is to move someone's USB cable from one port to the other.

And on top of that, Apple has that thing where only some devices can charge from their adapters. I have a special adapter just for non-Apple things because the white bricks (despite the usb-c) sometimes just refuse to give power to things. So frustrating.

Just switch to a different brand then.

> The USB situation.

> The lie.

> The gap.

> The names.

> The age.

> The trap.

> The buy.

> The truth.

> The chain.

> The lunacy.

> The cheat sheet.

Fucking LLMs have literally ruined the word "the" for me.