2004:
non-IT person loses the cable that came with their device, has to harass IT/their tech friend to even know what type of cable they are missing, goes to a store and pays a massive mark up for a cable that is not functionally better than a cheap one but the brick and mortar stores do not stock any cheap ones. Next year they will upgrade some component or another and need to buy an adapter for the cable that will also have heinous markup. A year after that they upgrade the component on the otherside of the cable and this time have to throw the cable and adapter in a box of loose cables.
2024:
non-IT person loses their device cable, shrugs and plugs in their phone charger cable... it works and is 4 times faster than the lost one, it will serve until the new one arrives they just ordered from a "top 11 usb -c cables to buy in 2024 list" they found on the first page of google, they could of got a better deal if they asked you but it's still a good enough cable and cost 1/4 of an aux cable in 2004. they still have a box of random cables in their cupboard but they didn't need to dig through it, they know what usb-c looks like from handling their phone 18 hours a day.
More like do nothing. Sure if everyone follows spec nothing will break from using the wrong usb-c cable in the wrong usb-c port but it's common to end in a situation were literally nothing happens.
Sometimes they were. And cables weren't, so if you didn't know any better you'd be plugging your headphones into Line Out. And good luck telling blue and green apart in low light while wedged between the desk and the wall.
I have an ingenious system for this: I put my 20 Usb c cables in a box and if I want to transfer data to one of my devices I try a couple of cables from the magic box until it works.
I must be living under a rock because this is the first I've heard of USB 4. Is it just a speed bump or does it affect the type of data that can be transferred? In my experience I've had issues using a usb 2.0 flash drive to use a live image of a Linux iso in a 3.1 port
It bumps the speed and officially supports Displayport and PCIe protocols being tunneled through.
Also, as a tiny nit for seemingly no other reason than to piss us all off, they have decided the "correct" way to write it is "USB4" (no space). This is in contrast to every previous version of USB such as "USB 3" (space).
User: "I moved my PC to another desk and now my monitor is off. The hard drive is making noises though. All the power cables are in haha. I made sure the connections were all nice and tight it's a bit strange."
IT: "Okay I want you to follow the video cable from the monitor to the hard drive. It should have a BLUE connector at the end.Can you see the label where it is plugged in?"
User: "..yes it says 'serial', I think?"
IT: "Aha. I'll drop around this afternoon with a spare monitor. That Trinitron monitor you've got will need to go away to be repaired."