Well, still cant figure this one out. nmcli reports usb0: unmanaged "usb0" ethernet (musb-hdrc), --:--:--:--:--:--, hw, mtu 1500.
I don't know if the usb circuitry is dead, results appear the same without the usb-c cable connection.
Can anybody see anything in these dmesg excerpts? 
[    0.210484] sun50i-de2-bus 1000000.bus: Error couldn't map SRAM to device
[    0.211403] sun4i-usb-phy 1c19400.phy: Couldn't request VBUS detect GPIO
[    0.211880] sun6i-mipi-dphy 1ca1000.d-phy: Couldn't create the DPHY encoder regmap
[    0.215866] sun50i-a64-r-pinctrl 1f02c00.pinctrl: initialized sunXi PIO driver
[    0.217192] sun50i-a64-r-pinctrl 1f02c00.pinctrl: supply vcc-pl not found, using dummy regulator
[    0.231444] Serial: 8250/16550 driver, 4 ports, IRQ sharing enabled
[    0.237227] sun6i-mipi-dsi 1ca0000.dsi: Couldn't get VCC-DSI supply
[    0.378077] axp20x-adc axp813-adc: DMA mask not set
[    0.379037] axp20x-battery-power-supply axp20x-battery-power-supply: DMA mask not set
[    0.385430] axp20x-usb-power-supply axp20x-usb-power-supply: DMA mask not set
[    0.386891] dcdc1: supplied by regulator-dummy
[    0.417966] 1c28400.serial: ttyS1 at MMIO 0x1c28400 (irq = 32, base_baud = 1500000) is a 16550A
[    0.418141] serial serial0: tty port ttyS1 registered
[    0.418909] 1c28c00.serial: ttyS2 at MMIO 0x1c28c00 (irq = 33, base_baud = 1500000) is a 16550A
[    0.538891] hub 5-0:1.0: USB hub found
[    0.538928] hub 5-0:1.0: 1 port detected
[    0.728040] usb0-vbus: supplied by vcc5v0
[    1.660409] usb0: HOST MAC --:--:--:--:--:--
[    1.660462] usb0: MAC --:--:--:--:--:--
[    5.117702] device-mapper: table: 254:0: linear: Device lookup failed
[    5.117711] device-mapper: ioctl: error adding target to table
[    5.120360] device-mapper: table: 254:0: linear: Device lookup failed
[    5.120369] device-mapper: ioctl: error adding target to table
[    6.313681] sun6i-csi 1cb0000.csi: Direct firmware load for gc2145-init.bin failed with error -2
[    6.313699] gc2145 3-003c: Failed to read firmware gc2145-init.bin, continuing anyway...
[    7.168775] random: 4 urandom warning(s) missed due to ratelimiting
[    7.293276] Bluetooth: hci0: RTL: fw version 0xaa5ca4dc
[    7.578831] EXT4-fs (mmcblk0p2): re-mounted. Opts: (null)
[    7.767535] anx7688 0-0028: boot firmware load failed (you may need to flash FW to anx7688 first)
[    7.783495] anx7688 0-0028: power disabled
[    7.783537] anx7688 0-0028: spurious status irq
[  22.057415] usb 3-1: GSM modem (1-port) converter now attached to ttyUSB0
[  31.715373] usb0-vbus: disabling
[  31.715437] vcc5v0: disabling
