Because you'd only buy one. They want you to buy many during your lifetime.
this post was submitted on 11 Oct 2026
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If you want the actual answer it's because you can't. There is very little voltage going through those cables, and there is no data line at all.
If you wanted to recharge your phone through a cable like that it would take about 10 years.
You can get high quality armoured recharge cables, they're not even all that expensive, you just don't get them in the box. Apple don't even give you a charger these days, so is it really all that hard to believe that they would give you the cheapest version of the cable?
Beat me to it. A lot of times, things lasted longer simply because they were less complicated. A phone cord is two wires. A USB-C cable has up to 16, and there is a lot more bandwidth being sent though them. Not to mention all the fancy handshakes that have to be performed in order for all the various standards the cable supports to actually work as intended. Besides just high speed data, you've got things like ethernet, HDMI/DP, Thunderbolt, etc. all going down a single cable. A phone cord only has to send analog voice. Honestly it's a miracle to me that USB-C even works at all, let alone semi-reliably.
Should a single cable really support so many standards and high data rates though? That puts a lot of limitations on what is often just a stupidly overengineered charging cable.
Well just because you don't utilize all the features of USB-C, that doesn't make them unnecessary.
For example: my PC refuses to POST after replacing the CMOS battery and I cannot for the life of me figure out why. So in the meantime I've been using a USB-C dock for my phone which breaks out the port into full-sized DisplayPorts and USB-A ports, that way I can use my phone as a desktop PC until I can figure out what the hell is wrong with my actual PC. I'm extremely grateful that USB-C has all these standards built-in, otherwise I'd be completely without a computer. The built-in desktop experience on Android works well enough for most tasks.
You unplug and replug the top one more often than the bottom one. It's not a great comparison.
Also there are more thicker wires in usb c.
cheaping out?
Because then they couldn't sell you a new one for $15 every 3 months.
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That's why I like the chinese brands because you need thick cables for their ultra fast charging tech. Although the fast charging are a bit proprietary so you have to find legitimate ones online when they do break.
I use these on all my cables both ends. This cable is 5 years old and still strong. Costed me 1 rupee per piece. Got a pack of 100 for 100rs (~1 us dollar)
I'm just thinking about the fact that they really GOTTA stop making white charger cables
What exactly am I looking at here?
cable strain relief
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Enshitification
They can. There are brands selling durable USB-C cables, I think they cost around 20 Euros each.
For Apple stuff, they will make it durable once their customer base stops being a cult.
Well, think of the data transfer rates. One carries voice, which can be in the kb/s
A lightning cable can carry a few gb/s.
All this extra data weighs down the cable, causing it to fail sooner.
You can solve this problem by switching to light-weight data, or by simply filling your cable with helium to counteract the extra weight!
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People seem to forget how easily phone cords went bad. We had to jiggle them or hold them at weird angles to keep talking.
You also bend, move, carry, unplug/replug, use a charge cable a lot more than we did land line phones.
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You can buy a coiled USB-C cable, I have a couple, they're pretty sweet. A company called Cable Matters makes them, they generally make quality stuff
The idea of a spring plus the poor retention of USB-C just doesn't seem like a good idea to me. Seems like these would just be a lot of cable coiled up to make a short cable.
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FYI:
Greenpeace pressured apple to stop using PVC in their plastics around 2007
Apple realised they could gain PR while making more money by having customers needing to rebuy new cables.
You don't need PVC to create durable cabling.
And give up the opportunity to get applause for planned obedience? That is not how you capitalism.
Its quite telling that ever since apple got forced to use usb-c the quality of their cables made a huge leap. It’s almost like the availability of competing cables is good for innovation or something.
planned obedience
Might want to proofread that
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I'm in tech, I can answer this for OP (on apple's behalf):
Because fuck you, thats why.
I have Sennheiser HD 280 headphones. They have a telephone cord for a wire. So good. So worth it. Cable still going strong after 6 years. And get this... when it breaks? I can replace it. They make spare parts. Saved me a ton of money in the long run
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Planned obsolescence is one of the cornerstones of our economic order.
I actually haven't had a cable do this since I stopped buying apple cables. I usually will buy just whatever brand I find and they might stop working eventually, but rarely do they fray like those iPod ones used to.
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