^This.

I am an electronics engineer, and am looking into this from my perspective as designer of the equipment

In my view, i have the freedom to design multiple pieces of equipment, which are made to work with each other. For example, a computer and its power supply unit (particular example : Phone and its charging power supply unit)

I want to choose the connection based on my best engineering considerations, not on what some consortium somewhere dictates. After all, i do want the users to use the equipment, so i have absolutely no interest to leave users with equipment which they cannot connect....

Some companies took this as an opportunity to abuse the customer, but :

1. They will keep abusing their customers regardless of the type of connector, and have plenty of available ways to do it

2. This does not mean that there aren't legitimate considerations why i may want to use a connector which i think is best in my design, and abusing my customer is by far not what drives my design choices



But it does not end here. It only gets darker - from my side :



1. In order to put a USB device on the market, i have to have a unique vendor ID. Those IDs are issued by a single consortium, based on some terms i must agree to, and pay them royalties

I don't have to agree to any terms, or pay any royalties to anyone, to use a 5.5mm DC barrel jack, DB-9 RS232, RS422, RS485, 3.5mm phone jack analog audio, MIDI (1.x), many other common interfaces which exist all around us, and of course any interface i design myself for my device



2. We do like "stupid", not "smart" over-complicated technology, right ?

USB devices cannot be "stupid", even if it is only for power delivery. (They can, but they will have very limited capabilities)

An USB load can only draw 100mA at 5V. This means that even an USB cup warmer, which is essentially just a resistor in a nice case, must have some chips in it that communicate in the USB protocol, just to be able to negotiate 500mA from the host. (Most hosts will provide 1A no questions asked, and this is often abused even in commercial devices, but it is not allowed by the USB standard if i want to build my device by the book)

An USB power supply can be made "stupid", but only at 5V and IIRC 1A. Anything above that (up to 2.1A on USB type A connectors, or any of the PD power levels) must be negotiated

In contrast, i can run a common 5.5mm DC barrel jack at the absolute max voltage which is considered as "SELV" under IEC standards, at 3A or more on actually adequately sized contacts, delivering 150W+ of power, from a power supply which can be as stupid as 50/60Hz transformer with rectifier bridge

(It may be a dickhead move to provide 50V on a barrel jack of the same size that is commonly used for 12V in a lot of consumer devices, but you get the idea)



3. Communicating with USB requires device drivers

For the host to communicate with my device, it must have suitable device drivers. Here i have 2 options :

 - My device presents itself to the host as a generic device of one of a few known USB classes, such as - HID (Human Interface Device - keyboard, mouse, not HPS lamps), Mass storage (flash drive, external drive), etc. My device then must fully implement the class i claim to comply with, and is limited to only functions that the standard includes for this class. It will work with the drivers existing on the host, regardless of the operating system it runs, so not require me to make and distribute any device drivers

 - My device is whatever i want, and presents itself as Ash's custom USB device. For it to work, i must provide device drivers to be installed on the host

I may not have the desire to build and support complex USB device drivers, when all my device needs is pretty basic functionality. (It is becoming less of an issue nowadays, as there are chips available which implement virtually any class in an efficient and reliable way - which i can use in my circuit, but this have not always been the case in the past)

I may not have the desire to build and support device drivers for some operating systems. For example Windows, where the functionality of my device may break anytime due to any number of reasons which are out of my control, but still i get all the backlash and customer support expenses. And where, to get my drivers certified (so not show up concerning messages to the end users during install), may require me to sign things to Microsoft which i have no desire to sign

Now, if i already am forced to use the USB connector even when i dont want to, will i be forced to provide drivers for my forced-USB device too, in the name of "universal compatibility" ?

And i buy the things, and it is absolutely fantastic that i can just charge my phone with my laptop charger, that i can throw my phone charger at someone with an iphone, and that everything just works. Have you not lived through the 2000-2020 era?!

There is no excuse for not having an universal standard for charging mobile devices anymore. I don't care *which* standard it is. As long as we don't have the silly situation we had 15 years ago with one phone using barrel jacks, another uses MicroUSB, yet another some Apple thingie and then some older ones with those wide and flat proprietary connectors.
And then all the toys using about 4 different styles of barrel jacks to hook up to an adapter.

All that stuff is gone. Literally all my devices use USB-C, MicroUSB if they're a bit older/chinese, or 1 style of barrel jack. It is amazing.

Yeah, dell (...) up with that docking station cable, i know all about that, the 6 year old generation of latitudes had a lot of issues with it. But the laptops also still come with a barrel jack. At least the one sitting on my lap can do both. Current gen of Dell laptops at work does not suffer from broken USB-C sockets anymore afaik.
HOWEVER - i personally also have had (out of like 20 i've seen or used) 2 or 3 laptop power supplies with barrel connector (HP and Dell), where the outer shield and isolation was peeling away or worn through by movement and the presence of a ferrite clamp very close to the jack. When used at a desk, it's always in a 90 degree bend right between the ferrite and the barrel plug, since cables are usually routed behind the desk. I could repair only 2 of them, the last one had the braid break too close to the connector.
My new USB-C charger at work has a much thinner, less stiff cable which at least for now appears much less susceptible to flex damage.

As a user, i don't care about the engineering behind it as long as it works well enough for long enough. Ideally you make all electromechanical components (like a socket) on a device replaceable by someone experienced with a hot air station.
Companies are actively producing proof that it can be done just fine. Sucks to have to jump through hoops, but it is genuinely making life better this way, and do away with the drawers full of oddly shaped power bricks.

As a professional repair person of mostly older equipment, USB-C is annoying because i cannot replace those things myself since i don't have a hot air rework station at work. Since repairing mobile digital stuff is not my responsibility, i can not justify the expense to buy it. However, this goes for essentially all SMD stuff smaller than SOT23. Which connector it is doesn't matter, since all modern connectors are SMD anyway, and the hardest part might actually be just finding the exact right one for the board.

If the industry doesn't come up with a standard themselves (like we standardized on E27 lamp fittings in the house in Europe, so you can buy any lamp of any vendor anywhere in the EU and it just works), a legislative body has to.

I'm glad you're not in charge of this because your philosophy might work from an engineering point of view, but is incredibly customer-unfriendly.

(Previous post) No, it does not. It is my free choice if i want to design charging with a DC barrel jack, and your free choice if you want to buy the product

It is really as simple as that. Instead of trying to legislatively force me to use a specific connector, go buy somebody else's product and leave me alone. That is how freedom works



As matter of fact, i am in charge of this. Part of what i do is design and bring to production electronic devices, including ones that connect to a computer, and including by USB

Here are 2 of the latest ones with USB - Those are real products developed by me 3 months ago, first units have been manufactured, and are being tested with the customer

The PC interface (on the right in both) is USB Tye B Mini, like on many early '00s portable devices. Not Micro and not Type C. I chose it because of my engineering considerations, not because i am trying to make my device work with a cable from a different device to please anyone

1. It has larger contacts, which i consider as more reliable electrically. (Although both devices draw under 100mA)

2. It has 4 through hole solder tabs to the PCB. This device will never come to your repair business for repair with an USB connector ripped from the board because the user pulled the cable - Unlike all the new devices with USB Type C

This will be supplied with a matching cable included. Of the highest quality from Tripp Lite, which will last them a lifetime even if they plug it in and out every day. Job done. If the customer loses the cable or wants an additional one, he is free to buy one himself