They used to be moderately common in the before times, like 2.5 inch IDE HDD times.

For added horror those often where Y cables, too.

My USB KVM switch uses them

Most cheap usb switchers will use them on the computer-switch side. I have a few models that I was testing out so I have a small pile of these. They’re great for cutting in half and using as a small usb power supply cable to breadboard projects, along with the horde of 5w Apple chargers I have in a bin.

They are commonly used with USB keystone connectors. For some reason most of them have A connectors on both sides.

I’ve had old Ugreen devices with a similar setup. Notably a KVM that fried my keyboard bc they failed to follow USB spec.

A-to-A cables are, in general, a hardware design smell. It’s best to avoid devices that don’t care enough to follow the spec.