Yeah wouldn’t it be less copper to only put in the voltage connectors? I don’t see why low end wouldn’t skimp out on those

If a USB-C to USB-C cable only had wires for VCC and GND, here's what wouldn't work:

* Data (this one is fairly obvious) * Power (since the CC wire in the cable is missing, and a compliant USB-C power source will refuse to output power unless the CC wire is terminated on the other end which signals what type of device it is)

You'd need at _least_ the CC wire as well.

Can’t the cable terminate it instead? That would save a lot of wire, and consumer expectations for USB-C reliability are just above “might catch fire” and below “I’d be surprised if the cable was incompatible or failed so quickly”.

You'd end up with a cable that only worked for "slow charging" (5V / 500 mA), and even then only in one direction (because the cable could only pretend to be Rp+Ra or Ra+Rd for one side). It's easier to do the right thing.

I wonder how much a crappy voltage regulator costs vs. 3-9ft of wire. Maybe you could step the voltage down at the device end?

The spec requires negotiation between the devices to deliver any nontrivial amount of power. A data connection is necessary to enable charging.

then we live in a world with extremely low adoption of this standard. why race to replace lightning with a standard that doesn't have good market penetration?

if you can't walk into the store and pick up a usb-c cable (because we've agreed that cable sold at the checkout counter isn't a real usb-c cable) then why does this standard matter?

Because Europe made Apple adopt USB-C.

Glorifying government intervention into market economics (and forcing a changeover of an entire ecosystem of hardware, producing innumerable e-waste) seems like an odd take for HN's libertarian culture.

Same thing with the sideloading, it's not enough that android lets you do it, apple's business model centered around the iphone as a secure endpoint has to be completely outlawed.

kinda seems the android idea just isn't resilient enough to stand on its own in the market without government intervention to literally outlaw competition with it. given how obtuse and anti-consumer the USB-IF body tends to be, this probably won't end well in the long run.

I don't understand - many devices that aren't android phones use USBC. The only devices on earth that used lightning were Apple ones, and not even all their devices (laptops) use it.

Standards and interop are good. If the "free market" refuses to align on that value I'm happy for another mechanism to force it to happen. Judging from this thread, I'm not alone in that.

Free market is only possible because of regulators in the first place. Libertarians conveniently ignore this fact.

I don't think they do. Most libertarians aren't anarchists — they accept the need for some government. They just debate (endlessly) how much.

>Glorifying government intervention into market economics (and forcing a changeover of an entire ecosystem of hardware, producing innumerable e-waste) seems like an odd take for HN's libertarian culture.

Not everybody is libertarian here, many are pragmatic, and are not dogmatic when a regulation is good.

For example, we also don't lament how there are standards in power plugs, and we don't have to juggle with 20 competing power outlets from different companies in our own country for the benefit of the "free market". That's for starry eyes "ideal over utility" libertarian types.

In the shadow of encroaching regulatory despotism, the luminous innovation of the iPhone was threatened with bureaucratic shackles by the European Union. The relentless march of progress was halted, as the central planners decreed that every charging port must bow before the altar of uniformity. No longer could Apple's vision for a sleek and efficient Lightning connector reign supreme; instead, the heavy hand of Brussels demanded compliance with the USB-C standard. The champions of individualism and choice saw their liberty erode, replaced by the stifling straitjacket of conformity. The spirit of innovation, once ignited by the entrepreneurial genius of Silicon Valley, flickered in the face of such top-down directives, leaving a world dimmed by uniformity, where the art of technological diversity was sacrificed at the altar of bureaucratic convenience.

Or, like, you know...it's just a charging cable.

... Ultimately, Apple failed because of USB-C.

> Apple is not likely to sell USB non-conforming cables.

I remember Apple intentionally selling non-USB conforming cables for the keyboard on the early iMacs. There was a little notch in the USB cable which meant that it couldn't plug into a standard USB port. The urban legend at the time was that it also meant that they didn't have to include the USB logo on the cable, better matching Steve's aesthetic preferences.

But, by definition, all of humanity that is not GP will call them that, so.. Calling them not USB-C is pedantic to the point of extreme silliness.