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Comment on Google engineer finds USB Type-C cable that’s so bad it fried his Chromebookparent

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A cable that puts 5 volts into random pin is also obviously wrong.

It's a balancing act between the probable failure modes and the cost of replacing the broken devices. Hostile manufacturers is not common enough of a failure mode (vs just Amazon sending a replacement device) to accept the additional cost for every single unit made. It makes no sense to spend 1 dollar more per device if it saves 1 cents per device on average for replacement costs.

If this kind of issue becomes more common then it might make sense. But for now it doesn't seem likely.

A cable that puts 5 volts into random pin is also obviously wrong.

I mean that the physical object is obviously wrong. Such a cable looks like any other cable.

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