Why are printer cables gold plated?

Almost all connections inside of a computer are plated gold. This is because gold is an excellent conductor of electricity. It also does not corrode, providing long lasting connections.

There are companies around the world that extract the gold from old computer parts and make profits.

Gold plating cables is supposed to make them more resistant to corrosion. The trouble is if you mix dissimilar metals that can also lead to problems.

If you have a choice between buying a more expensive gold plated printer cable vs normal cable, then don't waste your money and just buy the normal tin plated cables.

Read this:

"Then there's the contact between the connector and the jack. "Cheap connectors are often poorly plated," says Dimmitt. "Silver-plated contacts are especially prone to corrosion." What about gold plating? "Gold connectors are a big fallacy. Gold-to-gold is an excellent contact, but if you have silver or tin contacts on your equipment, you're throwing your money away and asking for problems by using a gold-plated connector. When you put electricity through a junction of dissimilar metals, there are electrochemical migrations over time that can cause problems. That's not necessarily true in the field where you're plugging and unplugging things all the time."

http://www.ultimateavmag.com/features/605cable/index1.html