alt Hacker NewsYou’ve gone from “companies add weight to feel premium” to “they went with the cheaper option because they could get away with it.” Those are opposite explanations. But either way, the cable doesn’t do what its physical presence suggests, nothing on it tells you otherwise, and that’s the entire point of the device in the article.
My position is entirely consistent, it is cheaper to signal premium quality than actually deliver it. The point I am making is that there is immense comercial pressure to do this is a highly competitive market when selling to consumers who don’t know better.
My example of weights is that the steel weighs are cheaper than the alternative of using heavier drivers, by adding weight they are signaling premium without delivering it. Similarly with the USB cable, consumers assume such cables are thick because of thicker wires and better shielding, it’s cheaper to make a thick cable without those those features, once again signaling premium without actually providing it.