USB 1 and 2 were relatively simple protocols, and had very low energy profile (I think max power on the original USB 2.0 spec is 2.5W (5V, 0.5A) [0]. Same with

USB 1 and 2 were relatively simple protocols, and had very low energy profile (I think max power on the original USB 2.0 spec is 2.5W (5V, 0.5A) [0]. Same with bandwidth. Back in USB 2.0 days, a single port could consume at most 480 Mbps in bandwidth, so let's say that your typical USB 2.0 hub consumed at most 2Gbps. That's very easy to accomplish in terms of I/O [1] (1 PCIe Gen 1.0 x1 port). Now imagine 4 USB 3.2 or eventually 4.0 full speed ports: that is 20 Gbps per port, and Thunderbolt 3 has 40 Gbps per port. That means a 4-port HUB would need to have I/O capabilities of 80 or 160 Gbps. That is even beyond PCI express 4.0 w/ 4 lanes (8GB/s). A single Thunderbolt 3 port can consume theoretically half as much as the best and fastest NVMe SSDs (around 7 GB/s). Basically, what I am trying to say is that it is getting harder and harder to achieve with USB 3.2 (and eventually 4.0) what was easy to do with USB 2.0. Our computers are just not getting fast enough to support all these I/O speeds. That's why most PCIe extension cards only offer a single USB-C port. A standard PCIe Gen 4.0 1x port cannot even support that at top speed!. Take a look at this card [2]: a single USB port doesn't even support 20Gbps speeds, and half the ports share the same 10Gbps bandwidth. And this card requires a PCIe 3.0 x4 port. And this is just bandwith. In terms of power, it is pretty much the same issue, Power Delivery can consume 100W at most. That's more power than the normal draw of a typical "ultrabook" laptop (around 60-65W). Now imagine 4 of these, 400W. That's a standard desktop PC PSU requirement. tl;dr it is just not possible to support this much I/O speed and power draw with cheap consumer technology. That's why good USB 3.2 and Thunderbolt 3 hubs cost much, much more than USB 2.0 ever did. Also why they are much more complicated devices. [0] https://www.tripplite.com/products/usb-charging https://www.tripplite.com/products/usb-charging [1] https://www.crucial.com/support/articles-faq-ssd/pcie-speeds-limitations https://www.crucial.com/support/articles-faq-ssd/pcie-speeds... [2] https://www.newegg.com/inateck-ku8211-red-pci-express-to-usb-card/p/17Z-00HW-00067 https://www.newegg.com/inateck-ku8211-red-pci-express-to-usb...