But these are retail prices in a discussion of manufacturers and distributors deciding what to include?
Having cut open such a cable recently to help me understand the spec and having ordered parts and integrated a USB-PD board into my project recently, I can tell you the actual costs if you're not in retail-markup land are substantially less.
We're more or less past the point where "USB-C smart cables are $40" is informed by anything but retail markup, in my opinion.
But I guess I'm only doing the bare minimum on the data side?