Imo, it is about the durability of ports as well. You make cable too tough, you may damage the C port. And not everyone has the tools to fix it. Kinda the torx tradeoff, you destroy bits, but the impact drill and screws are fine. More "easily" recoverable damage at the cost of cables. They ain't cheap though.
post
The cause is very likely just mundane - phone cord manufacturing supply chains disintegrated as landline phones themselves disappeared, so that kind of cabling just isn't economical anymore to scale for commodity use. Deviating from standards is expensive.
They can. But then you won't have to keep giving them money.

I think anker makes good charging cable, i have one that is still doing good after 8 years of abuse, plus its really long
Because crosstalk on 2 or 4 wires is way easier to deal with then on 24 18 wires
Who's got 24 wires?
No! I still shudder to think of how those phone cords stole my innocence of intractable topology problems.
Two things:
- the land-line phone handset cord probably got less use than your charger cable.
- look after your things!!! I have never had a USB cable of any kind end up this way. This kind of damage only comes from abusing the heck out of them.
I'm guessing you didn't grow up in the age of landlines with corded handsets. They got used all to hell back when they were THE way of contacting people remotely. Kitchen phones in any home with a mother got used a lot, with the cables being dragged all over the room and sometimes into the next.
- No. I have had several of these cables. All of them fell apart. I used electrical tape to hold them for a while but the problem kept spreading down the cable. The material they used is the problem.
Not necessarily.
I remember this very good charging cable from a premium phone I bought way back when. Truly felt premium in the hands with a matte finish and soft to the touch.
Lo and behold, after 6 months of regular use the cable started staining, and cleaning only made worse. Then after a year it frayed. 6 more months and I'm sure it would have looked like the one in the picture.
Moral of the story: there are good and bad products in all price categories and no, not every single product design is foolproof. No matter how universal and genericized the category it's in is, as innovation sometimes also breaks stuff.
Bad stuff's also on the market.
Only cheap cables end up this way, other you can easy reforce or fix with these and a lighter forever. Sets of these in every DIY shop/mall for a few bucks.


all 25 comments