The issue is with USB-C you can run into limitations at the cable level where the cable is too long or poorly shielded to provide devices with the right data speeds/power requirements and some companies (cough apple cough though it's bleeding more into other places as the aesthetic gets copied) refuse to properly label things. And some of the differences are not spelled out anywhere, for example to get the top thunderbolt 3 data rate of 40Gb/s on a passive cord you cannot have a cord longer than .5m. To get a longer cable to pass the full speed (to drive say an eGPU or high res monitor) you have to get a more expensive active cable (that may not work because companies online are unscrupulous and will try to rip you off). All of this is extremely opaque to users who just want to have a slightly longer cable to arrange their desk as they prefer.

At least with the different connectors and cables I didn't have to worry so much and things generally worked when plugged into the right place.

[0] https://www.cnet.com/how-to/usb-type-c-thunderbolt-3-one-cab...