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USB-C hubs and my slow descent into madness - Dennis Schubert
(overengineer.dev)
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
I actually owned the first one he mentioned and it died after a few months of 9-5 usage.
I had tons of issues with the cheap ones sold by 3rd party resellers, mostly because they are cheap chinese crap with bottom of the barrel components inside. However, what the author fails to pay attention to is that Macs have Thunderbolt 4 ports. Yes, Thunderbolt is compatible with USB-C, but you are adding a layer of complexity into the mix. Instead I recommend getting a native Thunderbolt dock.
I eventually paid a premium for a native Thunderbolt 4 dock and have had zero issues since.
While that is true for Thunderbolt 3, it is no longer true for Thunderbolt 4, as Intel donated the Thunderbolt specifications to USB-IF specifically to reduce the complexity you mentioned.
Thunderbolt 4, instead of extending the USB-C spec with another protocol, is now just a maxed out USB4 Gen 3 with all the bells and whistles (except EPR I think), and Thunderbolt 4 is mostly just a label Intel charges money to slap on at this point, as any USB4 Gen 3 spec'd device should work the exact same.