Yup, that's always the answer. The customer doesn't give you the full specs, complains about why this isn't available already. When you deliver your proposed solution it turns out they had some extra physically impossible to fulfill requirements. Reminds me of "The Expert" skit.

The customer is used to being able to plug all of their stuff into a lot standard wall outlet and their headphones in any standard 3.5mm jack so it's not at all surprising that they don't automatically provide all the specs. And frankly customers shouldn't have to care. USB engineers and PMs completely botched the design of USB-C.

I think it’s interesting how a lot of knowledgeable people will chime in on here on certain feature compromises and limitations with USB-C and it always sounds reasonable in isolation. But you only have to take a step back and look at the specification in its totality to see that it’s a shit show. It’s like this thing was designed by a bunch of subcommittees and no one had a clear understanding of or oversight over the big picture.

I am ok with various devices having various capabilities. Not too surprising given they are made from various bits.

But I want one damn cable to bring them all and in the darkness bind them. And a way to know what cable that is.

Well, that exists, it's called Thunderbolt 3 (or 4, since PC makers decided to try to get away with a shitty half-version of TB3).

And the cable exists too, but you have to pay through the nose for it, and people expect all cables to be $5 at Monoprice.

Turns out that 40Gbps and supporting any and all monitors at the same time and 100W of power isn't an easy spec.

Everyone mocked Apple for going with Thunderbolt so early, but it turns out they had it exactly right, just like they did with FireWire, another standard that was super-fast for its time and also included robust power delivery.

Sure, that'll be $129 for a 1.8m cable. Will you be buying one to power your wireless charger? https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MN713AM/A/thunderbolt-4-p...

That's a bit dramatic. It's a longer active cable. You can get a certified passive Thunderbolt 4 cable for 25 Euro including VAT:

http://shop.caldigit.com/eu/Adapters%20And%20Cables/Cables?p...

Short answer to the grandparent: buy a certified Thunderbolt 4 cable. They have clear markings (a Thunderbolt logo, along with the digit 4). They are backwards compatible with Thunderbolt 4, Thunderbolt 3, USB 4, USB 3.2/3.1/3.0, USB-C Gen 1/2, USB 2.0 and can charge 100W.

The customer assuredly cannot do that for a standard wall wallet.

The original poster said they wanted to plug in an iPad and phone for charging. The right comparison would be a customer buying a power strip, plugging in two space heaters at the same time, and wondering why the circuit breaker triggers.

The closer comparison would be a customer wanting a power strip that they can plug multiple phone chargers in to, I think.

A fast-charging phone is to a standard USB port as a space heater is to a standard wall socket.

The promise of usb (any version) is that you could have one port that everything plugs into. Usb-a isn't perfect in that regard, but it's mostly there. Usb-a backslid considerably on that promise.

Okay, but old powered USB hubs were still under $30 and the power cable was optional.

They didn’t provide dozens of watts per port.

I don't need dozens of watts per port. I'm not trying to charge my laptop. I just want to power e.g. a spinning-rust 2.5" external USB hard drive. Which USB ports are able to do at their default line voltage, pre USB-PD negotiation; but which these "data transfer only" USB-C hubs cannot do for some reason.

Not being able to power spinning external drives from USB A ports on laptops is a known issue for a while. Some manufacturers even provided you with a double USB A ports on the laptop side to make sure there is enough power for that.

You're thinking of 3.5" drives. 2.5" drives are a bit easier to power.

It wasn't intentional on my part, but it appears the hub I link will provide 3.5 watts of power to each port:

https://support.satechi.com/hc/en-us/articles/4405450897435-...

And I'm again not familiar with power requirements for external drives, but it appears that is sufficient for at least some 2.5" USB drives?