If history has told us anything, once everyone adopts a new standard port, it's time for someone to make a new standard.
Anyone remember Micro USB?: https://www.engadget.com/2010-12-29-european-standardization...
Anyone remember Micro USB?: https://www.engadget.com/2010-12-29-european-standardization...
In comparison micro-b had 4 pins, latches, and wasn't reversible. Better than before but it's easy to see why that didn't last very long! Eventually USB C will hit that point to but it's built with a bit more planning on being a "more than USB" interface in mind from the get go.
Another issue is I can't seem to find good cables. Most of the cables I have seem too big and bulky with respect to the receptacle, working as strong long levers.. I feel like I have to be extra careful around connected USB-C cables to avoid damage by knocking something.
Weirdly enough the best USB-C cable I have yet is the charging cable that came with Sennheiser Momentum (3?). It's actually quite thin, flexible, and doesn't have a ton of bulk around the connector. I've used it regularly for charging my phone, headphones, and also for soldering.
The big characterization I'd make between USB Micro and USB-C (2014) is that USB Micro was designed for one specific task: connecting 5W power (expanded (unofficially?) to 11W) and USB2.0. USB-C is a much more abstract connector, with gobs of general purpose data & a huge range of power ranges. For data there's two pairs of highspeed differential lanes (so, 8 pins), plus some other lines, for power there's way more amps (5A) & scalable voltage (really scalable with USB EP's 48V) meaning tons of juice. These are all opt-in for use. There's a very flexible power delivery range, there's lanes designed for general high speed connection use not just USB. There were upfront designs for how to run multiple protocols, not just USB, over the connector. With USB4 there's packet level sharing, so net bandwidth can be shared in more interesting mixes than 50/50 or to many destinations at once. USB-C can do just about anything. We can keep changing our uses of it to do whatever.
It's almost hard to imagine what else we might possibly want. Intel's mobile chip's onboard thunderbolt/USB-C ports offer 40 Gbps system-to-system connectivity, while desktops are still slowly marching towards 2.5Gbit ethernet. 10Gbit connectivity is still semi exotic to anyone but hardcore compute enthusiasts, but this connector has proven itself capable of way way more already, at a clearly mass-market price point.
If there's one innovation I would like to see from USB-C and USB in general, it'd be longer connections. I'd love to see a 10Gbit USB4.x mode that works over a 6m cable, for example. I don't think the connector has much to do with the range difficulties faced by modern, high speed USB. And similarly I don't see much push to create a higher-lane count connector, but that's another possible place where USB-C proves less-than-ideal long term.
- RJ45/8P8C was standardised in 1987
- the 3.5mm audio jack in 1979
- the PCI express slot from 2003
These are all still in use today. People expect to change connectors maybe twice in a lifetime, not every decade.
I sometimes wish I hadn't thinned my cable collection in the late teens, I could show you fifteen connectors which haven't lasted as long as, say, Micro-B.
Even USB4, which I love, still has dedicated old USB2 wires running around, because it's just too pre-modern to encapsulate adequately. This fact is a shot across your bow: even though USB-C is from 2014, it subsumes the previous connector. It's backward connectively compatible. The RJ45 & TRS jacks you cite are so primitive, so simple, so single-minded that of course they had no competition. There was so little to compete over, to adapt to, to grow into. A different implementation would have been irrelevant. Except, oh, even TRS/3.5mm audio had to evolve & grow to become TRRS, to add a mic channel: a case where even your immutable forever connectors aren't.
You're right that the time-scale isn't long enough to make USB-C the obvious forever connector, that the time-scales talked so far aren't that long. But digital connective technology isn't that old. We didn't have anything before, and Micro-B basically served & would keep serving, but we want more. I feel like there's an obvious huge colossal truth batting at you & you're ignoring the enormity of how clear, deliberate, & sequential this evolution has been. The fact that USB-C emerged out of the previous connector feels to me like further evidence that this is part of one continuum, that your greivance that connectors can only change once or twice is missing the clear upfront truth of the matter.
And now we're here. We spent 30 years going from crap at consumer digital systems to great, and I have a hard time seeing this as anything but the semi-final destination for us. I don't see good change as likely or probable in quite a long long long time. Perhaps lifetimes. USB-C is the final destination of mainstream computing, as far as it looks, and I merely wish it wouldn't last as many lifetimes as it seems probable to.
We’re already well on our way to removing connectors and using Qi/WiFi/Bluetooth. I bet we’ll see phones without connectors soon.
For video transmission i dont think there's a viable replacement. wifi6 wave 2 or wifi7 might possibly make wifi good enough. Also Im not expecting wireless power delivery to scale. It's adequate for phones but I dont think it makes sense for even mid sized laptops.
Otherwise its excellent and probably will last a long time, but for charging laptops, its a little concerning.
I do wish USB starting working on that now though.