You don't know what cp is for. cp is exactly for copying data from a file to another file -- and under Unix, devices are represented as files. Using cp for writ

You don't know what cp is for. cp is exactly for copying data from a file to another file -- and under Unix, devices are represented as files. Using cp for writing disk ISOs to an USB drive is proper use, not abuse. dd is for transform-and-copy, so you're abusing dd when writing disk ISOs. The fact that most of the Internet is wrong doesn't make you any less wrong.