Multiply that by millions of people and 10s of millions of devices and it is a pretty big deal. How is advocating for a standard so that every purchase wasn’t a crap shoot a bad thing? Having to sort through reviews just to attempt to determine basic functionality is ridiculous. I don’t read reviews to find out of a table lamp will plug into the wall because the basic standard of delivery power over a power cable is a given because of a set standard.
USB C would be as if we could already plug arbitrary lamps into arbitrary sockets, but then someone decided the same socket that powers lamps should also be able to refuel a car and now you have to plug and pray with five different cables before your lamp will work. Also if you use the wrong one it will spray gas all over your lamp and catch fire.
Spraying gas and catching fire is precisely what it won't do. The spec is conservative about capabilities; assuming devices aren't out-and-out lying about physical capacity (which is out-of-spec), it's designed to err on the side of safe conservatism.
If you plug the lamp into the gas hose plug, it just won't turn on.
I bought a set of cables positively reviewed by Benson Leung for my new phone, and they worked fine.
Recently I bought a new laptop and it doesn't charge with it, or any other USB cable in my place, except the one it came with, which is too short, and only ends in USB-C so I can't use it with any other power adapter I own. I don't know why it doesn't charge with any other cable.
If not even Benson Leung's recommended cable works, what then?
This is the frustration. All USB-C cables should have some bare minimum features that all of them supply, and be clearer about which ones have which features. Labeling it all the same USB-C leads to the frustration so many people are talking about.
The thing is, if it was broken then none of the dozens of people who reviewed it mentioned it was broken at all.
The device itself is everything I expected it to be, and I can still charge it with the included cable. The only issue is that it only charges with the provided cable and nothing else I've tried so far. I don't think this justifies invoking my warranty on it. It isn't a deal breaker, I've paid enough for it and I'm already starting to use it daily. But there seems to have been no way to know it was "broken" in this specific manner, maybe because nobody really felt the need to test with a different cable in their reviews. They probably just declared, "hey, it charges, so no problems there."
There's also the cable between the charger and PC, and the capacity of that matters too. It might not be the charger, it might be a limit on the cable's power capacity.
1) have device
2) have charger
3) plug device into charger
4) does it charge?
5) if no, write on charger "sucks" and get another charger
If one is worried about buying the wrong charger, here's a hint: people review these things on online stores, and cheaper is worse.