New ask Hacker News story: Ask HN: Why wasn't USB designed to handle peer-to-peer data transfer?

Ask HN: Why wasn't USB designed to handle peer-to-peer data transfer?
3 by reassembled | 2 comments on Hacker News.
A friend and I were wondering why USB wasn't designed to accommodate the peer-to-peer (computer-to-computer) data transfer use case? In the DOS and Win 3.1 days we used to transfer files across computers via either serial or parallel port connections. It seems that USB "crossover cables" do exist but they either have some kind of active electronics in the middle, or expressly say "do not use this to connect two computers together".