4 ms·
It's remarkable that pretty much every feasible design has some traction. You might expect it to be winner-take-all.
by tlb 9y ago
It's remarkable that pretty much every feasible design has some traction. You might expect it to be winner-take-all.
- mtreis86 9y agoA lot of them are designed specifically to make it difficult for the average person to open without specialized tools.
- mc32 9y agoSome of it is to thwart legit owners of things, but also a fair amount to deter casual vandalism or even saboteurs.
- pacificmint 9y agoI suspect the tool industry has a strong incentive to keep as many of them as possible in use. I have a feeling that they push new designs to manufacturers as being 'tamper-proof', then once sufficiently adopted, push them to the sales channel to be open to open these tamper-proof screws. Repeat as needed to keep revenue up.
- 2muchcoffeeman 9y agoNot to mention they could also have metric and imperial systems like hex keys...
- taneq 9y agoI think it's a case of it being counterproductive to try to standardise. Relevant xkcd: https://xkcd.com/927/ https://xkcd.com/927/
- 13of40 9y agoWe're probably at 80% Phillips, 15% flat head, 5% everything else, though.
- jstanley 9y agoThat largely depends on which country you're looking at, which industry you're looking at, and whether or not you recognise the difference between Phillips and pozidriv.
- akvadrako 9y agoIt might be in the long run. Torx is the clear common-place winner, but it was patent-encumbered for a long time. I bet even Ikea will switch to them eventually.