Pixel 6 seems to reject charging over low-quality USB-C cables for some users

[Kisai]

18 hours ago, leadeater said:

 

 

Low quality USB cables are not "fake", they are just low quality.

 

You can continue to believe that people are basically good and legitimately trying to sell good products. I'm telling you otherwise, that fake products exist, and they are the majority of the "shit" products on amazon, ebay, alibaba, taobao, and so forth. Those companies know they are selling fake products, sometimes with their own branding on it, and will continue to do so, because they don't actually make them, random third-party sub-contractor in china does. Amazon and eBay should be held responsible, and so should Bestbuy and Walmart, for selling fake products. That 30 cent USB cable was never designed to work. It was designed to fool you into spending several dollars, and because it's several dollars it's not worth your time to complain and get a refund. That's why they continue to exist. 

 

You fail to understand that the vast majority of e-waste is "fake shit" decidedly-so to deceive people. You never see 90% of the fake stuff that ends up eBay because it's taken down, and I assume the same of Amazon. "Third party" sellers on Walmart, BestBuy, and Newegg? You never know. 

 

Do me a favor, and before you post a reply to this thread, google "fake products" + "china"

https://developingtelecoms.com/tech/devices-platforms/7436-new-tricks-needed-to-stop-the-45-billion-counterfeit-smartphone-market.html

https://www.ipwatchdog.com/2018/06/26/top-5-reasons-counterfeit-goods-getting-harder-spot/id=98645/

 

 

[rikitikitavi]

1 hour ago, Kisai said:

You can continue to believe that people are basically good and legitimately trying to sell good products. I'm telling you otherwise, that fake products exist, and they are the majority of the "shit" products on amazon, ebay, alibaba, taobao, and so forth. Those companies know they are selling fake products, sometimes with their own branding on it, and will continue to do so, because they don't actually make them, random third-party sub-contractor in china does. Amazon and eBay should be held responsible, and so should Bestbuy and Walmart, for selling fake products. That 30 cent USB cable was never designed to work. It was designed to fool you into spending several dollars, and because it's several dollars it's not worth your time to complain and get a refund. That's why they continue to exist. 

 

You fail to understand that the vast majority of e-waste is "fake shit" decidedly-so to deceive people. You never see 90% of the fake stuff that ends up eBay because it's taken down, and I assume the same of Amazon. "Third party" sellers on Walmart, BestBuy, and Newegg? You never know. 

 

Do me a favor, and before you post a reply to this thread, google "fake products" + "china"

https://developingtelecoms.com/tech/devices-platforms/7436-new-tricks-needed-to-stop-the-45-billion-counterfeit-smartphone-market.html

https://www.ipwatchdog.com/2018/06/26/top-5-reasons-counterfeit-goods-getting-harder-spot/id=98645/

 

 

I don't believe there was any talk about counterfeit products. I might have skipped couple of replies, but I don't remember anything like 'fake Google branded cables flooded the market'...

 

The talk is about low quality products that aren't to the 'standard/min.standard' and can either easily break the next day or not fully support 'advertised' qualities, and consumers cheaping out with or without the knowledge of the quality of the products they are getting.

[leadeater]

3 hours ago, Kisai said:

You can continue to believe that people are basically good and legitimately trying to sell good products

No, it's literally and entirely irrelevant to what I have been saying. Do you have a comprehension problem or it simply a discussion point you are wanting to have so aren't actually aware of what I have actually been saying? I suspect the later, it's something you very much want to discuss so if I don't address it then you for whatever reason jump to the conclusions you have been. Fact, if you update the USB spec and make my suggestion a requirement of it then the issue is entirely resolved and there is zero way around it no matter who or why they are making the product so it's completely pointless to bring it up at all.

 

I never said fake products don't exist, fact is fake or not doesn't matter. Selling low quality USB cables does not make them fake, they can be legitimate USB cables. What you are trying to point at is actually false advertisement or trademark infringement which is a different thing entirely and already covered by the laws I pointed to. It is not illegal and it doesn't mean a cable is a "fake product" if it is made and sold as "generic USB cable $2". As long as the manufacturer is paying for the USB-IF logo license, which some are and some are not, then it's a pure quality issue and that alone. If their product page is ripping off images and lying about details of the product then that is advertisement laws and trademark laws, product testing is basically irrelevant to that issue and you do not need to do it to find such products and deal with them.

 

And at the very least if the USB spec was updated as suggested it wouldn't matter if some random manufacture is breaching trademark the cable is either up to spec and it'll work or it's not and it will not at all. Thus low quality USB cable issue has been solved, not fake products, counterfeit products or trademark infringement of which I have zero interest in because it doesn't matter towards the actual issue and is already adequately covered under existing laws. Like most things it's an enforcement issue for that and I simply have no interest other than quality not if someone is allowed to use the USB logo.

 

So stop banging on about fake products, I don't care and I'm not discussing it because it's not a requirement to solve that actual problem with cable quality at all.

 

And FYI companies like Belkin are perfectly capable of, and do, make sub-standard cables that are not up to spec and people buy them so lets not hyper focus on a single issue and actually seek to solve the actual problem. This even more so applies to manufacture included cables with products which are made to the lowest cost.

 

Up to spec cables that are trademark infringing is still vastly better for the consumer than not up to spec cables that are trademark infringing, and trademark infringement isn't even directly a consumer issue unless it's a product traded and purchased on the basis of it's name i.e. Louis Vuitton.

 

Low Quality != Fake

Fake != Low Quality

Fake ~= Low Quality

Low Quality ~= Fake

 

Notice how fake and quality are not mutually inclusive? So lets stop trying to only treat them as if they are. That means you can fix one without having to fix the other! I choose to seek to solve the quality issue because it is feasible and within reasonable cost to do so. If you want to seek to solve counterfeit products then you can choose to do that, just know it's an already losing situation that is cost exorbitant.

[mr moose]

On 12/7/2021 at 4:31 AM, Kisai said:

You and Leadeater are still missing the point. There are manufacturers of "shit cables" and "shit devices" that do-not-care, and they are entering the retail product stream via amazon, and ebay via "drop ship" companies that don't even make the product, they just put their brand on it. These products are being made to bilk people out of their money and the company never exists long enough to do anything about it.

 

It might be fine if Google and Apple device to enforce charging standards, but that doesn't mean these companies making "shit cables" are going to stop. At best, you might get Walmart and Amazon to be more protective of their own brands, but that's wishful thinking. The only reason Walmart doesn't sell counterfeit items is because they were threatened by the trademark holder, nothing more. Because they have before. 

 

It all comes back to Western companies and people not giving a care that they are selling trash. So that pallet of USB cables, or individual cables "drop shipped" from PRC are the same manufacturer one day, and a different the next, the middlemen on the PRC side see an order for "a USB cable" and pick one up from whoever will sell it to them the cheapest. 

 

Nobody is testing these products. Period. 

 

No we are not missing any point.

 

We say the the best way to make shit cables less of a thing is for phone makers to tightly adhere to specs which make shit cables unusable,  and your response is there will always be shit phones?  Your argument doesn't actually address the proposition.

 

Maybe there will always be shit phones, but that doesn't change that making them adhere to tighter specs is the most plausible way to reduce shit cables in the market.

[Mihle]

6 hours ago, Kisai said:

But they don't. The consumer is ultimately the one taking it up the rear when fake and poison products enter the retail chain. Your consumer rights are meaningless when there is nobody to hold accountable, as they disappear as fast as they appeared. So start holding the storefront accountable.

 

Have you never been subjected to one of those amazon or ebay sellers that flip the hell out if you don't leave them perfect feedback? That's because they know they will get kicked off the site for not having perfect feedback. Scammers don't give a care, they just put out a few good products to get the positive feedback, and then dump all the shit product and disappear.

If you hold stores(ebay, amazon) is held more accountable and consumers use those rights, they might end up thinking more about having a system that work against those shit sellers. 

 

Checking everything at the border is way too much work, so have to be done other ways that require less, for example people complaining. 

 

And no, I haven't personally experienced that, I don't really use ebay or amazon personally, except maybe two times where it was the only option, and those went fine. 

[WolframaticAlpha]

On 12/2/2021 at 11:43 AM, Helpful Tech Wiard said:

Don’t also didn’t make a ps4 pro 2 and call it the ps4 pro and start calling the ps4 pro the ps4 and act like there never was a ps4 not pro and the. Change their mind and call it the ps4 pronormal, then the ps4 pro the ps4 pro pro and the ps4 pro 2 the ps4 propropro 

 

confused? So am i

[Kisai]

19 hours ago, leadeater said:

No, it's literally and entirely irrelevant to what I have been saying. Do you have a comprehension problem or it simply a discussion point you are wanting to have so aren't actually aware of what I have actually been saying? I suspect the later, it's something you very much want to discuss so if I don't address it then you for whatever reason jump to the conclusions you have been. Fact, if you update the USB spec and make my suggestion a requirement of it then the issue is entirely resolved and there is zero way around it no matter who or why they are making the product so it's completely pointless to bring it up at all.

Because you seem to think that fake products are accidents, and not the goal.

 

 

19 hours ago, leadeater said:

So stop banging on about fake products, I don't care and I'm not discussing it because it's not a requirement to solve that actual problem with cable quality at all.

You don't understand the problem, at all. You keep coming back to the thread with this impression that "shit cables" are just one-off accidents, rather than that majority of the cables cheaply priced cables out there. Brand-named or not.

 

19 hours ago, leadeater said:

And FYI companies like Belkin are perfectly capable of, and do, make sub-standard cables that are not up to spec and people buy them so lets not hyper focus on a single issue and actually seek to solve the actual problem. This even more so applies to manufacture included cables with products which are made to the lowest cost.

Because -every- company just puts their brand on things because they think they should be in X market, when they don't jack about X market.

 

A fake USB cable, fake clothing, and fake food all have the same reason for existing, and that is to dupe idiots into wasting their money and harm legitimate companies selling the real product. 

 

We all laugh at Monster Cable for selling bullshit $100 overpriced cables, but at least we can all agree that the cables work and are to expected to be to spec. 

 

 

19 hours ago, leadeater said:

Up to spec cables that are trademark infringing is still vastly better for the consumer than not up to spec cables that are trademark infringing, and trademark infringement isn't even directly a consumer issue unless it's a product traded and purchased on the basis of it's name i.e. Louis Vuitton.

 

Low Quality != Fake

Fake != Low Quality

Fake ~= Low Quality

Low Quality ~= Fake

No Leadeater, that's not how it works.

 

A counterfeit product is one bearing the trademarks of a company that didn't make them. While that tends to be a problem for Sandisk/Western Digital as much as it is for Nintendo, Warner Bros, and Disney. LVMH and Tiffany are an entirely different level of counterfeiting, because LVMH products are handmade, and seeing someone selling a "new" LVMH product that isn't LVMH, is a guarantee that it's fake. That's not the case with any mass-produced product. A factory producing products for Walmart will be making them for Walmart one day, Costco another day, Dollar stores on yet another day, and so forth. Then that factory will run out their supplies and sell those as "OEM" versions of the exact same product on eBay and Amazon. 

 

Fake products, are those that are not the product being sold at all. Selling non-working products as the real product, is still selling a fake product, even if it's not a name-brand you recognize. If it even has one.

 

You can go on eBay or Amazon and fine exactly-identical cables you see as BestBuy and Walmart's house brands. Maybe back in the 80's and early 90's you could be assured that the house-brand Radio Shack RCA phono cables were at least as good as the Sony and Pioneer cables, because you could see the cables in the store. But when it involves the internet, you are often shown an image that isn't even the product you're buying. You are shown a stock photo, that may be a bitmash of several other photos.

 

So you are literately getting a fake product, because you are not getting the thing advertised. You could spend 30 cents or 30 dollars, and end up with the exact same cable that came from the same factory, and the only difference is the brand that's been silk-screened onto it.

 

That's why more expensive cables, go out of their way to have brand on them at all, usually with fancy cable ends. I'm sure you're familiar with Ethernet and USB 2.0 cables that don't have a single brand name on them, despite coming in a plastic bag with a brand on it. eg Startech. Those startech cables are not made by startech, they are made by the same companies making Walmart and Costco's house brands. These big companies sometimes know they are selling shitty products, and just don't care if nobody complains about it. Both Walmart and Costco have customer-friendly return policies, so it's not in their best-interests to sell products that will create high levels of returns. 

 

And you know what happens to those returned cables? Into the garbage compactor and off to the landfill/incinerator. So e-waste is not solved as long as the majority of "shit" cables can be ordered directly from China with no oversight or regulations.

 

19 hours ago, leadeater said:

Notice how fake and quality are not mutually inclusive? So lets stop trying to only treat them as if they are. That means you can fix one without having to fix the other! I choose to seek to solve the quality issue because it is feasible and within reasonable cost to do so. If you want to seek to solve counterfeit products then you can choose to do that, just know it's an already losing situation that is cost exorbitant.

 

While you've hyper-fixated on the cables, you also ignored the other side of the problem, where low-quality products and fake products are often intended for markets like Africa and India, and end up making their way into the Western retail logistics because of companies like Walmart seeking cheap crap to sell.

 

You can find, even on this forum, people who complain that their devices do not work with their existing cables. Even Linus.

 

And what did LMG discover? Well apparently not enough to put their affiliate links to brands that passed the test.

 

You know what the complaint ends up being? "Why does my expensive toy, refuse to work with my old cables?", not "Why are you making me replace my shitty cables." 

 

The ewaste problem will not go away without large amounts of turn-over in electronics to actually test the cable, or utilize security chips in both ends of the cable that do the test themselves and report to the device it's capabilities.

 

Until then, your option is either to to make the importer pay to test the cables, or fine them millions of dollars every time a cable fails and results in property damage/death. Please look up the Ford Pinto, many companies make a calculated risk that the amount of people they will indirectly kill from a bad product will not bankrupt them, and it's cheaper to pay the fines/lawsuits than to test or even produce a better product.

 

Less "crappy" devices make it to western shores because they require certifications regarding radio waves or radiation, those certifications are also faked on fake products. So no, "low quality" products are those that have actual certifications, and just tend to be low-durability/low-quality, fake products aren't tested at all, and could be made entirely of plastic for all you know.

 

There are entire websites dedicated to pointing out how to identify fake cables. "FAKE", that includes both cables that are intended to deceive (eg fake 3.0, fake PD) and cables that were never intended to work (such as cables that only have the charging pins connected), not just "fake apple, fake samsung" cables/chargers.

 

So quit ignoring the problem is that the fake products are the ewaste.

 

 

[rikitikitavi]

12 minutes ago, Kisai said:

So you are literately getting a fake product, because you are not getting the thing advertised. You could spend 30 cents or 30 dollars, and end up with the exact same cable that came from the same factory, and the only difference is the brand that's been silk-screened onto it.

Ohhh, now I get it... you are using 'fake' as blanket term for everything that is not performing as advertised... But then, by your logic most cars are 'fake', since MPG is bullshit in a lot of cases lol.

 

Fake product = counterfeit

Your 'fake' product = low quality product and counterfeits in the same bucket

 

Please don't mix things together.

 

21 minutes ago, Kisai said:

20 hours ago, leadeater said:

Up to spec cables that are trademark infringing is still vastly better for the consumer than not up to spec cables that are trademark infringing, and trademark infringement isn't even directly a consumer issue unless it's a product traded and purchased on the basis of it's name i.e. Louis Vuitton.

 

Low Quality != Fake

Fake != Low Quality

Fake ~= Low Quality

Low Quality ~= Fake

No Leadeater, that's not how it works.

I come from a post-Soviet country, I have experienced ton of fake products. And sometimes, a given fake can be so good that it might be 'on par' with the real product, but way cheaper. So, it is exactly how it works. 

 

[Quackers101]

4 minutes ago, rikitikitavi said:

Ohhh, now I get it... you are using 'fake' as blanket term for everything that is not performing as advertised...

Some ads or claims should be illegal. Also I would say depends on the performance they claimed or what value it holds to a product.

Like said SSD drives, that for some reason later versions have worse performance while still costing the same or behind an "on sale", which should be false and cracked down on from legit businesses.

4 minutes ago, rikitikitavi said:

I come from a post-Soviet country, I have experienced ton of fake products. And sometimes, a given fake can be so good that it might be 'on par' with the real product, but way cheaper. So, it is exactly how it works.

fake brands can be nice, so long it's not harmful. Both in what it's going to be used as or not cause death by not working as expected. like "fake" screws, that are given to building projects and... woops there it collapsed. Or if it's "full self driving" claims by Tesla.

[rikitikitavi]

22 minutes ago, Quackers101 said:

Some ads or claims should be illegal. Also I would say depends on the performance they claimed or what value it holds to a product.

Like said SSD drives, that for some reason later versions have worse performance while still costing the same or behind an "on sale", which should be false and cracked down on from legit businesses.

Yes, false advertisement should be illegal. There is also a thing of product's claims having tiny footnotes with "according to tests in perfect environment, on previous gen model, etc"...

[mr moose]

11 hours ago, Kisai said:

 

So quit ignoring the problem is that the fake products are the ewaste.

 

 

Your weird definition of fake products aside,  no one is ignoring the fact they are ewaste, in fact it is specifically addressed as "the" problem in the proposition that making them unattractive to the consumer (by having phones simply not work with anything that doesn't meet the requirements) would reduce said ewaste.

 

 

[leadeater]

11 hours ago, Kisai said:

Because you seem to think that fake products are accidents, and not the goal.

How on earth did you arrive to that conclusion. I honestly have no idea how you come up with the things you do 

  

11 hours ago, Kisai said:

You don't understand the problem, at all. You keep coming back to the thread with this impression that "shit cables" are just one-off accidents, rather than that majority of the cables cheaply priced cables out there. Brand-named or not.

Again how are you coming up with this? I literally said millions of cables are unnecessarily made every year and the only viable way to actually root these out is to update the USB spec so it is impossible for them to be used.

 

You tried to argue with me that this was a bad idea because it would cause e-waste, yes it would however it would cause less e-waste than now because they would stop being made and you are literally arguing with me right now that low quality cables are being made which to put in your words "are e-waste".

 

It was either my first or second post in this topic where I stated such cables are being made in their millions every year and you want to tell me that I think they are one off and not on purpose?!?!

 

Would you please make up your mind on what points you want to argue and support, stop flip flopping all over the place it's actually making it impossible to have a discussion with you.

 

And don't try on this whole other markets stuff with me, if the UBS spec is updated and the only USB controllers and chips being made and can be sourced have this then it is impossible to make a garbage product that you claim because there would be literally zero way to make a device that would work with these cables unless you source old stock which will not be around forever so it will be solved eventually, 100% guaranteed. I challenge you to argue against that. Tell me how anyone is going to make a knock off phone that has a USB port on it where the only available part enforces cable specification compliance.

 

Also I deem any product that is not up to spec as being low quality, the quality issue spans a great deal of different situations so it is the best term to use when talking about a proposed solution that will cover every situation under the broader low quality descriptor.

[Talamakara]

In all honesty I noticed this back on the pixel 5's I was receiving at work. I would plug them into a cable that would fast charge everything else and they wouldn't charge.