USB4 is required to support Thunderbolt, and USB4 cables are similar to Thunderbolt in their price and thickness, so this problem already exists, just with shittier naming conventions.

Basically for any cheap use cases, you just have to buy a random "USB-C" cable with unknown capabilities, while for specific data use cases you have to buy a "USB-C" cable that also supports a specific data rate, either USB 3.1, USB 3.2, USB4 v1.0, USB4 v2.0, or Thunderbolt 3/4/5 (and most cables will support multiple of these, for example USB 3.2 Gen2x2 is the same speed as USB4 v1.0 and TB3).