Finding a decent hub is a minefield, but I don't think this is the fault of USBC as a specification. It's just the incentive towards cheap manufacturing.

I'm no electronics guru, but if watching a load of videos from the legendary bigclive has taught me anything, its that electronics can be built sometimes very well, and sometimes very poorly.

When consumers buy hubs on Amazon we will consider the features (ports), the appearance (nice and shiny to match the macbook), and the price. What we often fail to consider is what's on the inside.

We can't see what's inside and we assume that any hub is as good as any other, but nothing could be further from the truth.

Electronics can be built with a while load of extra components that go above and beyond the baseline. Extra electronics to do things like help prevent overheating, smooth out rough voltages, or prevent damage to themselves or other electronics they are connected to.

But these components cost money, and so the incentive is to leave them out and spend those manufacturing pennies on making the case shiny, because that's what people are looking at.

This is very different scenario from when the ports are built into in the computer/laptop itself, because in that situation the equipment orice point is already expensive and so the engineers will have leeway to make sure the ports and surrounding electronics are of high quality.

So yeah. It's a real problem, but it's not USBC to blame.

I have 3 similar ones, over 5 years old. All are working except for the Ethernet port on one of them.

Especially when you run video through them for extended periods of time, for example work video calls. They get very hot and have a very short life span, I seem to have to replace mine every 6 months or so

It's maddening how flawed USB-C is. In terms of reliability, I've had to replace the usb port on my phone already after 3 years (at least it's possible to do that with my phone), and I've had every USB-C dock fail on me.

And they're also bad with interoperability. I've got several cables and devices, each of which uses C connectors but quietly refuses to interface with for reasons that are known only to the manufacturers. Is this a data and power cable, a power only cable, or a secret third option? Time to test every single one and promptly forget. And sometimes my devices have further preferences about which power cable will work.

We were all deceived. One standard to rule them all.

If you want a brand recommendation:

Random cheaply made Amazon products are made to fail.

I think fewer USB ports is a terrible trend.

I have one from Ugreen and it works for 3 years already, constantly connected to laptop. I kind of knew I had to choose a reputable brand when it comes to USB devices that have PD feature.

In my first field IT job, I had to use a dock that had a parallel printer port that we used to configure and troubleshoot the ancient line printers the company was still using. Those docks barely lasted a year and they would just straight up quit working no matter what computer you plugged them into.

Hey, at least it beats Micro USB.

I'd be lucky if those cables lasted more than a few months before breaking. I threw out literal bin bags full of them last time I moved, not a single one worked at all, no signs of visible damage either.

My USB-C cables have largely lasted, even the one that came with my OG Pixel still sees use, and one for my work laptop charger is literally bent 45 degrees up but still works fine anyway.

While I don't live that dongle life, I've never had one of these fail either, but I bought only one and it was fairly expensive.

I have two, one bought ~3 and one ~5 years ago, and they both still work perfectly for me. One I use daily - and actually I constantly plug and unplug everything and throw it in a bag etc - and one I use rarely. It's Anecdata / maybe I got lucky / etc etc but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The daily is an Anker and the less-used one is a Ugreen. Maybe spending a bit more to not buy the cheapest ones is working well for me?

The answer is, you have to buy a Proper ™️ one.

With active cooling, a power supply, and proper Lightning etc. support.

I buy Dell WD19TB units second hand from CeX for about £60. New, they cost several hundred.
Even then, they have issues (fans staying on, and a STUPID bug where turning off the machine causes power-off packets to spam the network).
But for general work, they're very reliable.

I have 4, 2 are in constant use in a desk (wfh and office) and 2 on my backpack. Only one of them (the cheapest one, less than $10) has some issues but I use it when working inside a vehicle with a lot of cables plugged in and it gets bent very badly a lot of times. Anker seem to be good

I have one, glitches constantly where I have to keep unplugging and re inserting flash drives/other USBs