I would love to see somebody attempt to damage a micro-USB or USB-C port by forcing a USB-A plug into it. Not going to happen, sorry. They may as well try to force a NEMA-5 plug into a VGA port. It's nonsensical.
At a certain point on the usability continuum, user error becomes so severe that only dementia can explain it. But USB-C incompatibilities are so far from that point that arguing otherwise seems like bad faith. These USB-C incompatibilities can bite technically inclined people with sound, sober and healthy minds.
What is your suggested solution? Every potential configuration USB-C can offer needs its own physically different cable? We're going to need a dozen different form factors now. How do you do that at scale economically?
How does it help when someone inevitably buys the USB-C cable with shape y when they need USB-C cable with shape x? It physically doesn't fit, great, but they still have the wrong cable and their device still doesn't work, not even in a degraded fashion. They still have to take it back to the store.
Typically these issues bite people who bought cheap junky cables that weren't USB-IF certified off Amazon by sorting for lowest price. If it's not working, check that your cable is certified for what your intended use case is. This applies to everything, not just USB-C.
They could, at the very least, enforce color coding. Colorblind people would still be left high and dry, but with the status quo everybody is up shit creek.
> How does it help when someone inevitably buys the USB-C cable with shape y when they need USB-C cable with shape x? [...] They still have to take it back to the store.
It helps because they know they have to go back to the store, and aren't left wondering if the problem is actually with themselves somehow using their computer wrong. As I mentioned earlier: "Some USB-C cables not working with some USB-C sockets leaves users feeling gaslit."
USB3 did have blue color coding on the plastic interior of the connector. That doesn't exist on USB-C. You'd have to color-code the metallic connector or the connector housing. Forcing a color-coding scheme on the connector housing would clash with branding, so you'd likely end up with companies ignoring the color coding.
People will also ignore the color coding even if it existed. Counterfeiters would add the color to add legitimacy to their incompatible products. Color coding would not physically prevent you from plugging the cable in.
The people who feel gaslit over a USB-C cable not working would probably also feel gaslit over buying the "wrong USB C cable", because they bought a "USB C cable" and "USB C should just work, why do I have to remember which of 12 different connectors my computer uses, I thought the point of USB C was a unified connector".
> The people who feel gaslit over a USB-C cable not working would probably also feel gaslit over buying the "wrong USB C cable",
They might feel deceived or mislead by the packaging, but they won't have to wonder if they are somehow using their computer wrong. Particularly for people who lack confidence with computers, this means a lot.
While I can understand the desire to make it easier for non-savvy computer users, I don't think it's worth destroying the technical gains USB-C brings with it. Again, we've had non-savvy users hook stuff up wrong or destroy things even when ports had differentiated shapes. A software solution to identify the incompatibility and notify the user seems more practical than redesigning the connector for every evolution of USB-C.
At a certain point on the usability continuum, user error becomes so severe that only dementia can explain it. But USB-C incompatibilities are so far from that point that arguing otherwise seems like bad faith. These USB-C incompatibilities can bite technically inclined people with sound, sober and healthy minds.