7 ms·

So frustrating. One would think that after nearly 2 decades of consumer confusion over USB cables that it would be possible to just mark the cables in a clear

So frustrating. One would think that after nearly 2 decades of consumer confusion over USB cables that it would be possible to just mark the cables in a clear way with a non-confusing, easily looked up logo (or better, with a alphanumeric-code). It makes me wonder if manufacturers are just doing this to increase the churn of cable sales, so consumers end up buying more cables because "some work and some don't".

shrimp_emoji 7y ago
That or it's a spectacular example of committee design failure. I can't tell what runs deeper: evil or stupidity. :D
- falcolas 7y ago
  "Sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice." I don't have an attribution, but it's an apt quote.
  - krick 7y ago
    > I don't have an attribution This is called "Hanlon's razor" and, by the way, it is probably a silliest, baseless, most overused saying on the Internet...
    - cobbzilla 7y ago
      No, the original razor is “never assume malice before having ruled out ignorance and stupidity”. This is an ironic (and funny!) riff on it.
- jrockway 7y ago
  I don't think it's malice or stupidity, but rather a desire to fix people's problems and get it right this time. xkcd sums it up best: https://xkcd.com/927/ https://xkcd.com/927/
bobthepanda 7y ago
Even better, why not just make incompatible cables impossible to intermix by, say, using different ports?
- krick 7y ago
  Well, cables in question are mostly backwards-compatible, so as long as it would actually transition forward, the prospect of using a single ultimative cable with any device with identical ports seems actually nice. The problem is not that USB-C is a bad standard trying to combine too much in a single port, the problem is that there are multiple different cables absolutely identical from the outside at one time on the market and not only they are not color-coded (as it was with USB3 long time ago) to be distinguishable, manufacturers don't even bother to write on the box what exactly standard/generation this is. That is, even when you specifically buy a cable in a box, not even to mention situations when some piece of wire came to you with a phone or whatever.
  - Mirioron 7y ago
    It only seems like a nice idea if you don't care about efficiency. If your tool can do all the things then it's going to be a very expensive tool (or will suck) compared to something that's specialized.
    - krick 7y ago
      I might believe you that USB (or Thunderbolt) is imperfect both to transmit video to my display and to charge my phone, but the thing is, it does it well enough, and even if using some special charger will give me twice the speed, I honestly don't care, the life quality that simplicity of using 1 cable gives me far outweighs the hypothetical efficiency advantage of 10 specialized cables. The only case when I can consider a dedicated output on a consumer-grade hardware is when the signal is fundamentally analog. Otherwise, why should I even care, if both the bandwidth and latency are mostly fine and voltage is ok to power up my device?
      - 7y ago

shrimp_emoji 7y ago

That or it's a spectacular example of committee design failure. I can't tell what runs deeper: evil or stupidity. :D

falcolas 7y ago
"Sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice." I don't have an attribution, but it's an apt quote.
- krick 7y ago
  > I don't have an attribution This is called "Hanlon's razor" and, by the way, it is probably a silliest, baseless, most overused saying on the Internet...
  - cobbzilla 7y ago
    No, the original razor is “never assume malice before having ruled out ignorance and stupidity”. This is an ironic (and funny!) riff on it.
jrockway 7y ago
I don't think it's malice or stupidity, but rather a desire to fix people's problems and get it right this time. xkcd sums it up best: https://xkcd.com/927/ https://xkcd.com/927/

bobthepanda 7y ago

Even better, why not just make incompatible cables impossible to intermix by, say, using different ports?

krick 7y ago
Well, cables in question are mostly backwards-compatible, so as long as it would actually transition forward, the prospect of using a single ultimative cable with any device with identical ports seems actually nice. The problem is not that USB-C is a bad standard trying to combine too much in a single port, the problem is that there are multiple different cables absolutely identical from the outside at one time on the market and not only they are not color-coded (as it was with USB3 long time ago) to be distinguishable, manufacturers don't even bother to write on the box what exactly standard/generation this is. That is, even when you specifically buy a cable in a box, not even to mention situations when some piece of wire came to you with a phone or whatever.
- Mirioron 7y ago
  It only seems like a nice idea if you don't care about efficiency. If your tool can do all the things then it's going to be a very expensive tool (or will suck) compared to something that's specialized.
  - krick 7y ago
    I might believe you that USB (or Thunderbolt) is imperfect both to transmit video to my display and to charge my phone, but the thing is, it does it well enough, and even if using some special charger will give me twice the speed, I honestly don't care, the life quality that simplicity of using 1 cable gives me far outweighs the hypothetical efficiency advantage of 10 specialized cables. The only case when I can consider a dedicated output on a consumer-grade hardware is when the signal is fundamentally analog. Otherwise, why should I even care, if both the bandwidth and latency are mostly fine and voltage is ok to power up my device?
    - 7y ago