It's not just the receptacles, it's also 2-4 custom cables per device, with sleeves and overmolds and all that, because it's a non-standard, spec-violating monstrosity that necessarily needs to be included with the cursed switch.

I don't understand how that's cheaper than the alternative of paying a few cents more for the correct receptacles and then not even including cables, because the customer can use literally any standard off-the-shelf cable.

Could very well be mistaken on this, but if I’m right, at some point some USB host port conformance test specified such A-A rollover cable.

And also in more recent years, Intel DCI uses A-A 3.0 cable for CPU debugging on tablet PCs. Lesser known but Intel defines USB host controller spec.

So not allowed in spec for public use, but not custom cables per se.

I seem to remember some windows to windows networking that happened over an A to A USB cable, and I think it came as part of a PC upgrade kit, to allow you to move files from your old device to your new one.

So, I'm mildly confident you're right about A-A cables being valid, at least at some point.

Laplink cable?

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/817dK2e-q9L...

Those have a dongle inside the cable to actually do something useful, versus mindless delivering 5 volts to the other end.

Pretty sure those transfer cables were active devices, not just A-A cables.