Never had a problem with those "5 different cable types, each capable of different thing, with the same form factor".

All of those can be used to do the same thing -- just with a smaller powered current, and/or slower speed.

Just don't buy crappy cables:

https://www.theverge.com/2016/2/4/10916264/usb-c-russian-rou...

Just buy high-end USB-C cables from a reputable vendor and you are set. As long as some product (e.g. a printer or hard drive) comes with a specific USB-C cable, use it with that, and it will be good for it. End of story.

Do you consider Apple a reputable vendor? Becuase https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MLL82AM/A/usb-c-charge-ca... handles power and USB 2 only. No USB 3, no Thunderbolt, no HDMI, no DisplayPort.

As far as I can tell, the advice should probably actually be "Buy high end Thunderbolt 3 cables from a reputable vendor."

The decision by Apple to only sell a "charge cable" is one of the most baffling things to me. What on earth are they thinking?

Offering it a cheaper price for one of the most common uses where people need > 1 cables (one for home/office etc)?

Or the fact that's very easy to just buy another one for data/video etc?

I guess the standard could do with some color coding, but it's not like its the end of the world. Or worth it to have N different connector technologies just so we can differentiate what does what.

I can see why they sell the cheaper charge cable.

But why in the world don't they also sell an Apple-branded Thunderbolt 3 cable?

On my 2017 touchbarless 13 inch MBP, there are two ports with the exact same capabilities. Is that still not true for the 4-port models?

The four port models have reduced bandwidth on the right hand side ports.

https://arstechnica.com/video/2016/11/the-2016-13-and-15-inc...

It's kinda true - ports on one device have lower throughput for Thunderbolt.