That’s different protocols. This is only about the one being used when you share your phone’s connection via USB (tethering). Neither adb nor fastboot make use of this.
Also, starting with Android 14, there should be an alternative available with NCM.
Well a14 is not that common but I’ve never heard of tethering before (except for WiFi tethering that improves connection) so I guess it’s not important.
It’s not about improving a connection, but making your phone’s network connection available to other devices. USB tethering creates a network device at /dev/usb...
that behaves like an any ordinary network device, allowing you to create a connection using it. Wi-Fi tethering creates a hotspot similar to what your router at home does.
So now you can’t use USB hotspots on Linux? Yea mainstream has gone pretty evil then tbh. They didn’t even stop at the previous drama.