On Wed, 20 Aug 2014 07:08:24 -0700, William Sommerwerck wrote:

My cell phone uses a charger with a micro-USB plug.

'cause the phone makers got together and decided on a "universal"
connector for charging. Under pressure from the consumer about the
being fleeced for chargers with only difference being the propritary
connector.

If these were of such poor quality that they went bad after a few
hundred insertions, you can imagine the reactions of the manufacturer
and owner.

Do people keep a phone that long? People here seem to upgrade every
tweleve months or when ever they can twist their provider in to it.

Personally I don't like micro USB. It's too small, doesn't self guide
on insertion, the orientation is non-obvious and with the lack of
self guidance is the thing not going together because it's miss
aligned or the wrong way up? Mini USB doesn't suffer those problems.

--
Cheers
Dave.