Edit: Yes, like with all problems in life, "just be better informed than 99% of the population" is a possible, if smug, solution. Just not a good solution for the other 99%.
I’m starting to believe the whole counterfeits/commingled inventory zeitgeist on Amazon is another one of those things that was somewhat true at one point, but is more overblown social media bluster like so many other topics are today. Do they happen? Of course. I just doubt it’s as common as trotted out on here.
I buy an exceptionally large amount of stuff like this off Amazon for projects, and must be in the top single digit percentile for consumers of theirs for “cheap Chinese generic junk” and have yet to receive a single item I’ve noticed was not what it said it was. Some useless junk for sure, but those were all my fault and returned without issue.
We are talking hundreds of USB-C cables now, ranging from charging only to full on thunderbolt driving multiple daisy chained 4k monitors.
That category includes cables that can
- do one of the many quick charging standards (or multiple), but data only at 2.0 rates
- data at 3.x rates (any variants) but no power delivery
- power delivery, but only at limited wattages, and data at 3.0 speeds, to slow for alternate modes
If you know what you're doing, you can dodge all these landmines, but 99% of consumers do not and never will, and to them USB-C is that weird connector where they never know what'll work today. (Whoever decided that USB2 passthrough only works in one orientation was a real sadist, too.)
No? What world do you live in?
Both of my parents have used USB-C for years, and they're more careful with their charging blocks than they are with their cables. All they care about is plugging in their devices to charge and USB-C cables do that fine. Both Lightning and USB are replete with non-conformant counterfeit cables, it's a moot point since people throw away anything that is nonfunctional. 99% of consumers don't need Thunderbolt capabilities, so they don't actually care if it's there. That's why your mom and dad don't charge their phones with fully-specced cables either.
Considering that Lighting cables tend to max out their wattage at the USB-C minimum, I think these are some seriously bottom-barrel arguments. Even child-friendly manufacturers like Nintendo consider USB-C perfectly suitable to trust with children, because it's actually not that hard to deal with if you're just trying to charge a tablet. And so does Apple, if you don't consider the Mac a fully estranged business.
- The Switch insists on an obscure non-mandatory voltage that many early USB-PD power supplies did not support (and good luck teaching the difference between USB-PD and USB-QC), and even today a good chunk won't
- The Switch is the only commonly used device to not use DP Alternate Mode for its docking station, so it needs special Switch docks that support it (but an iPad will run with a Dell laptop dock!)
Apple at least managed to unify their devices on USB-PD for charging, but if you're using any other phone vendor, you run into the added problem that PD is a premium future and you're only getting QC for fast charging.
I can find a set of USB cables and a charger on Amazon that can charge any combination of laptop, phone and Switch at the same time with full speed. But 99% of regular, non-IT people I meey consider this witchcraft - anything other than "I use my laptop charger and the laptop cable for my laptop, and the phone charger with the phone cable, and the switch charger has the cable integrated" doesn't work for them and they have better things to do with their lives than figure out why, and I can't blame them.
Again, this seems to be a lot of social media hysteria over effectively a non-issue. I don't know anyone in my life who has a problem charging their phone and laptop off the same USB-C charger. Buy a 60W USB brick of decent quality and chances are it will charge everything you care about at a reasonable speed. These are folks who do not pay attention whatsoever to technology.
USB-C has absolutely improved the situation by a large margin. It's not perfect, but it's slowly getting better every year in my estimation. The early USB-C devices are starting to age out, and most things released recently are pretty good at conforming the basic set of standards you'd expect them to.
If you're doing out-there nerd stuff, I'd expect issues like anything else at the bleeding edge of tech. Such as trying to daisy chain multiple 4k monitors and the sort off one cable. That stuff can be difficult, but very few have such use-cases.
As a charging standard it's become pretty solid.
Only one USB-C cable I have ever owned was not capable of fast charging, and it was sold by a third party on Amazon.
Sure, the weird triple-split usb-c connector that came with my son's cheap walkie-talkies from Amazon doesn't do all that. But I don't expect it to, and it will at least charge my phone if I plug it, and that's the primary usage I want for this cable.