this post was submitted on 14 Feb 2024
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"yes, but it may not be optimal."
2004: non-IT person loses the cable that came with their device, has to harass IT/their tech friend to even know what type of cable they are missing, goes to a store and pays a massive mark up for a cable that is not functionally better than a cheap one but the brick and mortar stores do not stock any cheap ones. Next year they will upgrade some component or another and need to buy an adapter for the cable that will also have heinous markup. A year after that they upgrade the component on the otherside of the cable and this time have to throw the cable and adapter in a box of loose cables.
2024: non-IT person loses their device cable, shrugs and plugs in their phone charger cable... it works and is 4 times faster than the lost one, it will serve until the new one arrives they just ordered from a "top 11 usb -c cables to buy in 2024 list" they found on the first page of google, they could of got a better deal if they asked you but it's still a good enough cable and cost 1/4 of an aux cable in 2004. they still have a box of random cables in their cupboard but they didn't need to dig through it, they know what usb-c looks like from handling their phone 18 hours a day.
could have*
More like do nothing. Sure if everyone follows spec nothing will break from using the wrong usb-c cable in the wrong usb-c port but it's common to end in a situation were literally nothing happens.
USB-c manages all those protocols when you plug it in.
It will always pick the best one depending on the available hardware.
Yes, but I'm pointing out how the cable is part of it in ways that wasn't true for many older standards. So if I plug a non-data cable into a data USB-c port (say a digital camera with AAA / LR6 batteries) into a computers USB-C port then nothing happens. Same if I try to charge the camera by plugging it into a USB-c wall plug. Or if try to plug my phone into the USB-c charging port on my laptop, no matter the cable since neither phone nor laptop has the function to charge other devices. Etc etc.
I work IT and while I don't work directly in support anymore I still get people at the office coming to me for support because I used to and we've outsourced it now. So I know first hand how confusing USB-C is to average users.
Even if you use a data cable, it might not have the pins/wires for usb 1.1 fallback meaning a keyboard or mouse won’t work with it. Or it might support low power only. I had to buy a usbc cable tester to validate which ones might actually work with what.
My favorite is that not all chargers support all voltages. I have a few that do 5v, 9v, and 20v, but if your device asks for 12v, you’re out of luck, you either don’t get anything, or it fails back to 9v which isn’t enough to accomplish what the device wants to do (like charge). Still, it’s standards compliant!
The standard explicitly allows but doesn’t require support of any subset of standards so you never REALLY know what that cable or charger in your hand or the devices you’re holding can actually do without finding specs in docs… It’s really infuriating. The idea of USB-C is better than the reality, which makes the push to standardize on the connector not nearly as cool as it could be.
I have a portable switch dock (it's the size of a small power brick) and the cable that came with it broke. Finding a cable that supports the exact spec that the Switch needs to both get enough power to put it into docked mode and transmit the video signal took a few tries.
Plug a USB-C screen into a USB-C port. Will it work?
Maybe? If the manufacturer has wired the port to the GPU for DP/HDMI alt mode it might.
… but you’ve used this display on this laptop before?
Try another port! Nope, still nothing.
Maybe it’s the cable? Rummage around through your cables and try a few out. Hope you don’t have any from the 2010s because there’s a good chance they’ll ruin your device.
The screen works! But performance is terrible, why? It’s running in DisplayLink mode.
You give up and suffer through.
The most common thing I see is people confusing usb-c with thunderbolt, and using the former on docks and expecting it to provide power and transmit data.
Some commonly used adaptors aren't possible if they follow the spec.