It's easy to get that impression when you're buying stuff from the big box store, because it's all race to the bottom type stuff.

When I run into this issue in any product category, I can solve it by searching for a solution from an "industrial" or "commercial" supplier. It'll cost 10x, but it'll usually work, and if it doesn't you'll at least be able to talk to someone who knows what they're doing.

In just about any product category, there is very little quality difference within the same order of magnitude in cost.

I recently built a usb hub.

I got a box, some usb cables that have a female end and are fitted to mate to the box. If you are curious, it’s a box made for pro-audio equipment with precut holes. The holes are made for xlr ports, and the usb cables are terminated with xlr ports.

Now I have a usb hub where all four ports are wired directly to my motherboard’s ports. I probably should write a blog post with a parts list.

I managed to get a couple of good ones. While they're more like docking stations, Kingston's, now discontinued, Nucleum and UGreen's wares are all good.

If you go higher level, of course there's Thunderbolt docks, but you can't make them cheaply, so they're generally good.

I've generally found that the more expensive, branded USB C hubs are more trash than the cheap generics