You need that for power regulation. One of the reasons that you can use a USB-C lead with anything is because all of the devices that require different power will just tell the cable that and the chip inside the cable deals with it. Otherwise there would have to be different cables for different voltage requirements.
You can do cable detection with just a few resistors. Why make everyone use active cables just for basic functionality? Aside from exceptional rare circumstances, consumer grade cables should be passive devices IMO.
They don’t use cable ICs for basic power use. The IC in the cable (different ICs for different capabilities) is used for high power negotiation (ie the cheap thin cable won’t be able to do 100W, and the lack of chip ensures this safety requirement) and also for active equalization do you can get 40Gbps.
It’s a good thing, and cheap cables don’t need it at all. The system falls back safely.
You don’t need it though. The power regulation is a decision between the load and the supply devices, the cable is an unnecessary third party. The cable should just be a multicore connection between two things, not a third device.
If I had to go out on a limb though, I’d say it’s because manufacturers were selling cheap cables that didn’t meet the specification, and people were using them with higher power devices, causing overheating. By including a chip in the spec for the cable, you can push some of the responsibility back towards the cable manufacturer, and they can limit the maximum current to whatever they’ve designed to. In which case, we already do have different cables for different voltages - if your cable isn’t rated for 100W, then it might force a lower power even if your device and charger can do 100W. However it would be better if cable manufacturers would just meet the basic design specification to begin with, rather than creating unnecessary overhead.
It doesn’t make any difference either it’s between the supply and the device or it’s between the cable and the device it’s still two devices.
By pushing the responsibility onto the cable it allows you to operate the cable directly from a USB port. So you can have things like electrical sockets with USB connections and you don’t have to have chips in the sockets, because typically they’re just dumb electrical interfaces. It also means that the device delivering the power doesn’t have to be actually fully switched on, so you can recharge your phone from a USB port on your computer and you don’t have to power the computer on. As long as there is an open electrical channel to the port the cable will deal with it all itself.
Also it’s more efficient because you would have to have a control circuit in every single power delivery device, but this way you can have it in just the one cable, so now it is one chip for an unlimited number of power delivery devices.
The cable has to carry the negotiated power safely. It’s not unnecessary, it’s absolutely critical. I’ve personally seen and diagnosed the result of when this fails.
For your low power applications there is no need and the spec allows for that.
A chip can literally just contain basic logic gates. Your aversion to them is based on pure Qanon fiction
