USB-A requires three attempts to connect, C only one.

Huh, I’m not sure they are comparable.

Didn’t USB A and USB B use a master-slave relationship in which the male would (generally) always be the slave, whereas USB C uses agreement and discussion to decide the master and slave roles regardless of connector gender.

Please do correct me if I’m wrong. Also, do we say “agent” now instead of “slave”, or what is the new term?

We peaked at USB mini B.

USB-A male to USB-A male is not in any USB standard (not entirely true, but compliant cables are very rare and don’t connect voltage), and if you plug it into a device it’s not meant for, the behavior is entirely unspecified. It will probably do nothing. But it might fry your USB controller that is not expecting to receive voltage.

USB-C to USB-C is in the spec, and if you plug in two host devices, they won’t hurt each other. You can actually charge a host device over USB-C, unlike USB-A.

That’s why it isn’t ok. It’s not the same thing, it’s not in the standard, and it can even be dangerous (to the device).

What if I put a C-to-A Adapter on both ends? Is that okay?

actually they would be correct :

USB began as a protocol where one side (USB-A) takes the leading role and the other (USB-B) the following role . this was mandated by hardware with differently shaped plugs and ports . this made sense for the time as USB was ment to connect computers to peripherals .

however some devices don’t fit this binary that well : one might want to connect their phone to their computer to pull data off it , but they also might want to connect a keyboard to it , with the small form factor not allowing for both a USB-A and USB-B port. the solution was USB On-The-Go : USB Mini-A/B/AB and USB Micro-A/B/AB connectors have an additional pin which allows both modes of operations

with USB-C , aside from adding more pins and making the connector rotationally symmetric , a very similar yet differently named feature was included , since USB-C - USB-C connections were planed for

so yeah USB-A to USB-A connections are explicitly not allowed , for a similar reason as you only see CEE 7 (fine , or the objectively worse NEMA) plugs on both ends of a cable only in joke made cables . USB-C has additional hardware to support both sides using USB-C which USB-A , neither in the original or 3.0 revision , has .