Personally this reads more as an indictment of the USB-c style connector. The physical form used to tell users of basically all technical level what was suppose

Personally this reads more as an indictment of the USB-c style connector. The physical form used to tell users of basically all technical level what was supposed to work when connected to what. The current port is anything but "universal" and just about anything at all you could imagine can happen when you plug in two USB c devices together - your laptop could charge the phone, the phone could charge the laptop, the display could work without a USB hub, the display could work only as a USB hub, the cord could only deliver power, etc. And my (limited) understanding is that this is all on-spec; in practice you also have stuff like the power supply could be expected to deliver an off-spec amount like the Nintendo switch chargers and not work, etc etc