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.

Some commonly used adaptors aren't possible if they follow the spec.