What’s so complex about USB-C that we couldn’t have had this technology 20 years ago?
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If you mean having a plug shape that was reversible, we could have, but keep in mind that back then, before laptops and smartphones etc became widely used you weren’t plugging and unplugging devices constantly. You plugged your keyboard and mouse into your computer and it just stayed that way. The rise of portable devices is really what has lead to the change for plug shape.
If you’re talking about the capabilities, such as carrying video and other signals over the same cable, it’s a combination of things.
First is increasing data speeds to handle large amounts over one cable without that cable becoming excessively large requires improvements in materials science making it possible to carry finely differentiated signals that change values rapidly over time without interfering with each other isn’t easy.
Second, every kind of device that wants to talk over the cable has to know how. This involves a combination of circuitry and software. The more different types of signals the more complex it is. That’s why in the past having different cables for different purposes (video separate from key board) made sense. But software has improved and you can do more with a small chip now than you could with an entire computer 20 years ago.
All these things together make handling communication over one cable practical when it didn’t used to be.
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