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This is exactly what I'm talking about. A short-term view of the world, progress and technology.

All my devices supported USB-C before the EU regulation. But if I wanted to buy a device with a new type of connector, I should have been able to. This is how the USB-C came to be and how any new standard in hardware happens. New technologies are made and just sold, and if they are proven to be superior to others in the market, they often become standards.

The USB-C standard is not the best standard that can exist from now to the end of the universe, but if this discovery process is blocked, we will be stuck with it forever, which, of course, will also constrain the design and engineering of devices in other ways.

It's the same fundamental flawed thought process that has made the EU reliant on the US for a lot of services.

by 9dev4 hours ago|

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> All my devices supported USB-C before the EU regulation.

I don't have this particular problem so it doesn't exist!

It did exist for huge amounts of people. At the time, many manufacturers had proprietary plugs and would still have them if it weren't for this decision.

> The USB-C standard is not the best standard that can exist from now to the end of the universe

Which is why the law can be simply amended as soon as such a standard emerges. If the industry figures out something better than USB-C, pressure will build on the council to do so. This is nothing but a straw man.

by m4nu3l3 hours ago|

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> I don't have this particular problem, so it doesn't exist!

No, what I said is that you could find devices with USB-C in all the categories that are now regulated. This means it was pretty easy to find devices like that if you really valued USB-C. Of course, if you wanted an iPhone but you liked USB-C, you would have had a problem. A problem that is much less worse than blocking progress.

> Which is why the law can be simply amended as soon as such a standard emerges. If the industry figures out something better than USB-C, pressure will build on the council to do so. This is nothing but a straw man.

You totally ignored what I wrote, or you didn't understand it. No standard can emerge if you can't test it on the market. You can have a bureaucrat choose the next one from some proposal. It's not the same.

by GTP3 hours ago|

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You might have a point. But, at the same time, AFAIK the only manufacturer that complained about USB-C (and, coincidentally, making the exact same argument as you're making) was Apple. And they definitely weren't interested in making the lightning connector an industry standard. Quite the opposite.

by m4nu3l3 hours ago|

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It doesn't really matter to me, because even if that's true for Apple (or it was at the time), it still means other companies can't test new technologies. They might as well be OK with that, but it still means that consumers won't get new standards. The first attempt at enforcing such a standard in the EU was made with mini-USB.

https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/memo_1...

It failed to become a regulation (fortunately), but I have no reason to believe USB-C is different, and no better standards would have been tried by companies if they were allowed to do so.

by GTP2 hours ago|

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On the other hand, USB-C wouldn't have become a true standard if no-one forced Apple's hand. It's a compromise and, for the time being, I'm happy with this. As another commenter noted, if we feel the need for a new standard the law can be changed in the future. I concede that, depending on the future's situation, this could be difficult to do. But, without such law we wouldn't have had a standard to begin with.

by m4nu3l1 hours ago|

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> On the other hand, USB-C wouldn't have become a true standard if no-one forced Apple's hand

I don't want a state-dictated standard like this. What you're saying is that because some people want iPhones and they want them with USB-C, everyone else must forgo the possibility of having a better type of connetor until "we" (Is it the majority? I don't even think the majority uses iPhones in Europe) feel like having a new one (at which point the progress has been delayed anyway and you'll also get the initial problem again). I find the premise quite capricious.

by wqaatwt3 hours ago|

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> simply amended as soon as such a standard emerges

That statement just makes no sense. How can a new standard emerge when legally there is no option to validate its actually superior in the market?

> figures out something better

That’s not how it works. Most innovation does not occur in committees but through trial and error.

by Hikikomori45 minutes ago|

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Same as before? A group like Intel, Microsoft and a few more create a new standard and can get the eu to adopt it. Which popular cabling standard wasn't designed by one of the big ones?