No, it's a matter of expense. It's possible to embed a redriver in the cable every 0.5m, and thus get longer cables at full speed. They're just very, very expen

No, it's a matter of expense. It's possible to embed a redriver in the cable every 0.5m, and thus get longer cables at full speed. They're just very, very expensive. There are three alternatives: one cable type that does everything and is easy to use (but gets expensive quickly as it gets longer), multiple cable types that each do somewhat different things but use identical connectors, or multiple cable types that each do somewhat different things and use different connectors. The USB-IF went with the "multiple cable types, identical connectors" option, which is cheap but extremely confusing. The "multiple cable types, multiple connectors" is what USB was created to avoid. So the only remaining option to remove confusion is to have expensive cables.