As I see it, if there are these active circuitry in the plug (and there is) it should provide "answers to questions", I don't think that the final user would be

As I see it, if there are these active circuitry in the plug (and there is) it should provide "answers to questions", I don't think that the final user would be overly upset if he/she attempted to use a cable to (say) connect to a monitor and the OS would interrogate the cable and: 1) OK, this cable is fine for sending video to monitor xxxx 2) Sorry but this cable is not suited for video transmission 3) This cable seems to be monodirectional, try reverting it ... etc. The issue is when you have a bunch of cables, all either white or black that you cannot distinguish, and you have to try all of them, hoping to have a suitable one (alternatively they could have made them "colour coded", like, say, black 5 V charge only , yellow dual voltage, green charge + video, etc., even with just a small colour dot on the connectors )