Just wondering cus like wouldn’t it be more convenient to just plug your phone into the wall without a brick, or like cheaper to build a pc without a power supply? why do these devices need DC but lamps, fridges, fans, most household appliances can run off AC?
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The explanation is really outside the house; in the power grid.
To carry power a long distance (from power station to your home), the power needs to be a very high voltage otherwise it would just heat up the wires instead, wasting almost all of the power generated.
But that high voltage is too dangerous to enter your home – it can create arcs that leap several feet from the wires and kill you. So the voltage has to be lowered. The only realistic way to change voltage at grid scale is a transformer, and a transformer only works with AC. Conveniently, AC is also what a generator generators, so the whole grid works better and cheaper on AC
Most home appliances could be made for either AC or DC or would prefer DC, but a bunch of small adaptors in the house is easier to manage than the massive consequences and expenses of a last-mile DC grid
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