- Reversible: Important feature everyone asked for. One of the main application for a device-side USB connector is to plug the device in to a charger at night. That usually happens in a dark room, where reversibility is incredibly important. It was literally touted as the main reason why Apple shouldn't switch to micro-USB. But more importantly, micro-USB is a garbage connector even for being non-reversible, it's harder than necessary to insert without looking, it breaks way too easily and seems to take very few connection cycles before it stops making a good connection.
- DisplayPort alt mode: Every laptop uses this. It's what lets us have docks with display outputs.
- Symmetric: Every laptop has host-side USB-C.
- USB3: The micro-B "3.0 appendage" is ridiculous and huge, and no device which uses micro-B ended up supporting it in practice (except for I believe a couple Samsung phones?)
- Power delivery: Qualcomm QuickCharge is proprietary garbage. It could have been standardized yes, but is there any reason to believe Qualcomm would have wanted that?
- And it turns out it's incredibly useful to have both Power Delivery and DisplayPort and data transfer in one cable. It allows the world we currently live in where you can have one dock connected via one cable which handles video, power, USB, networking, audio, etc. (And yes, docks are generally too finicky, there's a lot to complain about in terms of implementation. But the idea is solid.)
> It was literally touted as the main reason why Apple shouldn't switch to micro-USB.
Apple using it as an excuse has nothing to do with it being a problem in the real world.
> it breaks way too easily and seems to take very few connection cycles before it stops making a good connection.
Never even heard of this actually happening in practice at the time. How hard were you pushing them in?!
> - Symmetric: Every laptop has host-side USB-C.
A few laptops have it. No peripherals (outside of those docks) actually use it because the hubs barely exist and very few have more than one.
> The micro-B "3.0 appendage" is ridiculous and huge
So? It's still tiny compared to the cable itself, this isn't a real problem.
> and no device which uses micro-B ended up supporting it in practice (except for I believe a couple Samsung phones?)
Those devices don't supposed 3 over USB-C either. If anything, USB 3 support in peripherals has declined the last few years.
> - Power delivery: Qualcomm QuickCharge is proprietary garbage. It could have been standardized yes, but is there any reason to believe Qualcomm would have wanted that?
QCQC over USB-C was a thing too, for a while. I guess we'll just have to wait for USB-D for fast charging!
> USB3: The micro-B "3.0 appendage" is ridiculous and huge, and no device which uses micro-B ended up supporting it in practice (except for I believe a couple Samsung phones?)
Nearly every external portable HDD I've seen has these (and comes with a corresponding short USB 3.0 micro-B to A cable).
- Reversible: Useless gimmick that nobody asked for
- DisplayPort alt mode: Useful in theory, but no phones support it in practice
- Symmetric: Host-side USB-C never ended up being mainstream anyway (and AB ports already existed anyway)
- USB3: micro-B already had the "3.0 appendage", if anything turning it internal made it easier for manufacturers to silently revert to USB2
- Power Delivery: Qualcomm QuickCharge already existed and could have been standardized without a new connector