[defective]

I didn't know that, so I'm glad you mentioned it. I have had at least 20 failed cables and 0 failed ports (of maybe five or six devices) in my experience with Lightning.

Actually, I'm not glad you mentioned it since that makes it even more perplexing. I was glad because if a port ever failed I would not have easily diagnosed it because I thought they were pretty good. But it must be my fault the cables are failing....

[Aloha]

My phones seem to eat cables, at the rate of about one a year, per device, but the ports last the lifetime of the device - which is a huge improvement over microusb.

[amluto]

I’ve had two ports fail.

Another issue with lightning: the contacts arc. The middle pin on any non-brand-new cable is almost always a bit burnt — it’s pretty easy to see. I don’t know whether USB-C has mitigations for this.

[basch]

buy cables with kevlar in them. i no longer eat cables per year.