Well, yes, because the competitors are functionally a completely different cable. One of them is just for charging, that is obviously going to be very different. So kinda hard to tell what you are really paying for. As another comment says: would be rather interesting to see differences in cables which claim to do the same.

> Clearly we are paying for quality here

It's not just quality. It's because Intel did the sensible thing and made a bunch of things that are optional in USB-C mandatory in Thunderbolt certification. So you always know what you're getting.

Not really. It's an apples-to-oranges comparison. The Apple cable is a relatively long 40Gbps cable, with active redriver/retimer due to its length. The competitors are bargain-bin 0.48Gbps cables, intended primarily for charging.

In fact, the NiceTQ cable violates the spec so badly it won't even work in most scenarios. The ATYFUER one is part of an A-to-C cable and is pretty much a textbook example of what such a connector should look like. The AmazonBasics one is also a decent example of a pretty standard low-speed C-C cable.

But that's also because TB has significantly lesser margins for errors than USB 3.1/3.2.