The little plastic bits always snap off. Ethernet is great for semipermanent wires but not very good for peripherals like portable hard drives that are constantly disconnected and reconnected.

That problem is largely solved if you use 8P8C connectors with a rubber boot protecting the latching tab.

https://info.pcboard.ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/RJ45-Conn...

You can't tell me that's better than the USB-C connector.

Even HDMI is better.

My MacBook Pro’s USB-C connectors glitch if you move them slightly. I like the data rate but I’m not happy with RAM-pack wobble in 2017.

Even with the protective guard the little plastic tabs inevitably break on me. I can't even say those have fared any better than the unprotected versions.

My main complaint is that the protective rubber often gets stiff as it ages, which can make it pretty dang hard to remove old cables (until you resort to pliers).

Yeah, live hinges (that is, plastic bits that intentionally bend, not rotate on pins) are always going to break eventually. They're just so easy to make that it's a trade off that doesn't fall in the consumer's favor.

Living hinges can have lifespan in the millions of cycles with the correct materials and design. I'm sure it's possible to make an Ethernet connector that doesn't break easily, but it would cost more, and people aren't willing to pay.

What’s that to do with displays which aren’t unplugged frequently?

I plug/unplug from my display several times daily, since the MBP connected to it travels with me. Granted, the end of the cable in the monitor typically doesn't move¹

¹well, one of them. The crap LG monitors we have constantly forget about the peripherals that are attached, and one easy way to fix this is to detach/reattach the peripheral. I suspect that the company is never going to RMA these devices, sadly.

USB-C is used for all sorts of devices many of which are unplugged frequently.

The obvious ones: Ethernet cables are big (imagine one on a phone), and aren't designed to be plugged and unplugged the massive number of times that USB cables are (spring contacts wear out, little clips break).

well maybe the actual plug could be modified into a small form, while still being pin-compatible with cat 5/5e/6.

USB cables have little to do with the question of sending pixels via IP

Outside HDMI and some DisplayPort cables, all display connectors click or screw in

And we’re talking about desktop OS and displays

I'm not even sure about sending it as IP, rather as raw Ethernet frames (or simply just using the cables).