Power bricks of the 1990s didn't have this problem. The barrel connectors were almost indestructible. You could drop bricks on VGA connectors and they'd still work.
I have never yet broken a USB-C cable. Not one.
When I used an iPhone for a couple of years, I went through approximately a Lightning cable per month, sometimes more. At one point I took a carrier bag of broken Lightning cables to the electronics recycling.
You must treat equipment exceptionally roughly.
(Now the cat chewing on cables in another matter xD)
I will say that I really wish they had managed to not have that middle section sticking up in the female connectors - cleaning out my phone's USB-C port is about 20x harder than cleaning out a lighting port because I feel like I'm going to break that little thing in the middle.
Like if my phone is low on battery I plug it into a portable battery and shove the phone and portable battery (connected by a USB-C cable) into my pocket, like any consumer would. I then go hiking, snowshoeing, biking, sleeping, like any consumer would. Cables have bent and broken in my pocket in these scenarios, among thousands of others.
My parent comment was yesterday; today's USB-C cable broke when it got stuck in an office chair's wheel caster, bending the sheet metal housing. Thi doesn't happen with ANY connector of the 1990s. BNC, RCA, DB-9, 1/8" headphone jacks, 5.5x2.5 barrel connectors, they ALL withstood office chair crushing and were all probably designed with consumer abuse like office chairs in mind.
I've even run over DB-9 and BNC connectors with heavy duty carts, they were fine.
USB C doesn't have that issue. There are high end cables and just kind of OK cables, but at least with the braided ones I normally buy, there aren't many terrible ones at any price. They decoupled reliability from craftsmanship and materials.
Pockets should be considered industrial duty environments.
Right next to a person is a much harsher environment than people think it is, stuff people carry tends to break and wear.
I'm not surprised the cables break in pockets in that kind of scenario, although I haven't experienced it myself with my admittedly much lighter and less varied lifestyle (lots of walking, occasional hiking, maintenance work sometimes including light carpentry, but no sports or biking).
There seems to be a very large variance in percieved reliability of cables and tech in general. Are you buying the same brand every time you need to replace something? Do more athletic people with more muscle have problems because their weight or level of force they commonly apply is more likely to break stuff? Probably just unrelated factors but it does seem like people who lift are more like to hate new tech. Is it about what clothes you wear? Is it the phone itself having something about the connector?
Obviously USB C has a problemwith a few specific environments, but I'm not exactly sure what those cases are.
While not saying USB-C is a great choice instead. Personally I just wish everyone could have generic magnetic Magsafe style connectors.
Just terrible overall.
Inventing a new standard with a weak sheet metal connector and 19 pins to deliver + and - isn't a solution to the above.
Regardless it's a crappy choice for consumer electronics because it's got no voltage negotiation. You can fry stuff with it, and chargers aren't universal.
2.1mm is a wonderful connector for switches, sensors, solar panels, and power you need to daisy chain, but PD is pretty much perfect for point to point medium power devices.
USBC seems to break far less often than anything else that's cheap and small. I don't see why 19 pins is an issue unless you just really like simplicity.
It absolutely looks like something that would fail all the time... But it doesn't. Somehow they made it so even the cheap knockoffs are durable.