Thank you for your comment.
There are a lot of challenges when it comes to providing information that is both accurate and not contradictory, without getting overly wordy with regards to compatibility of a device like the USBC-NVME.
This is particularly difficult because Thunderbolt 3 operates over USB Type-C ports. and other devices like a laptop that could take advantage of this enclosure may label their USB Type-C ports as simply a ‘Thunderbolt 3’ port. A consumer may not necessarily understand that USB Type-C and Thunderbolt 3 can be one in the same, particularly with how new both technologies still are.
This issue is similar to how many consumers did not realize that a Thunderbolt 1 or Thunderbolt 2 port was really a Mini DisplayPort connection with another data signal piggybacking on the port type. Therefor not realizing that a Mini DisplayPort adapter or cable would work with the port unless the marketing material explicitly stated it was compatible with a Thunderbolt port.
Context is very important.
For example, the title of the page you’re quoting is ‘Plugable USB 3.1 Gen 2 Tool-Free NVME Enclosure’. It makes no mention of Thunderbolt in the actual name of the device. If we wanted to specify it was Thunderbolt 3, we may instead call it the ‘Plugable Thunderbolt 3 Tool-Free NVME Enclosure’, and since such a device would operate strictly on Thunderbolt protocols, we would not claim support for USB connections, which is the case with our TBT3-NVME480 external SSD.
Because we know that a USB Type-C port supporting Thunderbolt 3 is also capable of supporting USB 3.1 Gen 2 signals, we call out that a port under either name is capable of the maximum performance of this device.
If we were to state it another way, such as ‘Capable of read and write speeds of over 900 MBps, depending on the SSD used, and when connected to a Thunderbolt 3 or USB 3.1 Gen 2 port. (Note: this is not a Thunderbolt 3 device)’, that would lead to other forms of confusion resulting from mixed messaging about whether or not it would actually work in a Thunderbolt 3 port.
Users looking to bridge Thunderbolt 3 back to an earlier version of Thunderbolt is by far the exception in terms of what people try to do with this device. Especially since there are no adapters that allow a Thunderbolt 3 device to connect to a Thunderbolt 2 host, there are only adapters that provide the ability to connect older Thunderbolt devices to a newer Thunderbolt 3 host. Edit: Apple offers a bi-directional Thunderbolt 3 to Thunderbolt 2 adapter. They do however stress that it does not work with non-Thunderbolt 3 USB Type-C connections. However, customer confusion about the exact capabilities of this adapter contributes heavily to a poor user review score for the adapter.
I hope this helps to provide more detail regarding the decision making process behind our choice of wording. Our intent is absolutely not to deceive anyone, it is merely to help less technical users find devices that work best with each other.