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Does anyone feel it is a little strange to have a government entity mandating a physical interconnect? I guess it has worked out well enough for receptacles. Bu

Does anyone feel it is a little strange to have a government entity mandating a physical interconnect? I guess it has worked out well enough for receptacles. But on a phone it acts as a data connection as well. I guess I just wonder if in 20 years will every device still have a USB-C port on it in some odd location? No one is using it anymore, but it is still mandatory on everything.

cherrycherry98 5y ago
Ports types have been converging naturally without government intervention. Even for iPhones, the writing is on the wall for the the lightning connector. It was introduced nearly 10 years ago under different market conditions (no equivalent USB standard existed). Apple is gradually converging on USB-C, MacBooks contain only USB-C ports, the iPad Pro uses USB-C instead of lightning. The rest of the product line can't be far behind given their propensity for simplicity, being able to use one cable for everything fits well with that. To answer the EU Commission's question, "Are your chargers piling up in a drawer?". No, I have far less chargers than 10 or 15 years ago when my laptop, digital camera, game system, and phone all had different connectors. Now my laptop, game system (Switch), and phone all use USB-C (phone has absorbed the digital camera). My Kindle is microUSB but newer ones are USB-C as well.
- selfhoster11 5y ago
  They have been converging way too slowly, and wouldn't have converged as close to one standard without an intervention.
- wyager 5y ago
  > Ports types have been converging naturally without government intervention. Agreed, so why bother with government intervention? The benefit is small and the potential long-term costs associated with retarding technological development are high.
- galgalesh 5y ago
  I think you greatly underestimate how much of this "natural convergence" happened because of EU influence. See the memorandum of understanding of 2009. https://ec.europa.eu/growth/sectors/electrical-engineering/red-directive/common-charger_en https://ec.europa.eu/growth/sectors/electrical-engineering/r...
  - cherrycherry98 5y ago
    An MoU is not legislation, it's agreement to work together on a common goal. It can be helpful but isn't binding. From the MoU: "The Signatories retain the right to withdraw from this MoU at any time with immediate effect." I was demonstrating convergence on USB-C across digital devices. An MoU from 2009 of phone manufacturers agreeing to use microUSB can only partially explain that. Maybe it helped give the idea of USB charging additional momentum. Maybe it would have happened anyway as microUSB was only itself introduced in 2007, and the phone landscape was transitioning to smart phones at this time.
ubercow13 5y ago
The government already mandates the electricity interconnect one step back at the wall socket. This is just extending that to modern devices.
- ravenstine 5y ago
  I guess it depends on how far you want it to go. If electric sockets aren't standard then that creates bottlenecks in infrastructure interchangeability. To me, I don't see why government has any business in USB. Bluetooth maybe since it takes up the air. But USB? It's bad enough that wall sockets haven't improved. Will we be stuck with USB-C long after its natural EOL?
  - adtac 5y ago
    smartphones are critical to living life in most developed countries. it's the same level of utility as electricity at this point. I don't see anything wrong with requiring a standard port.
  - mschuster91 5y ago
    > It's bad enough that wall sockets haven't improved There's not much need for that, to be honest, at least not for Continental Europe where the Schuko plug system is dominant. It's reasonably secure against children and offers enough capacity for all household loads, and industrial applications have all converged on the bulky IEC-60309/CEE-17 plugs. Sometimes, a product is simply "good enough" and does not require further improvements (or alternatively, a better solution exists, but the cost for retrofitting is prohibitively large).
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - selfhoster11 5y ago
    Legislation is not eternal. When USB-C outlives its usefulness, it can be legislated away in favour of a different standard. Or they could let a standards/industrial body make the binding decision.
GordonS 5y ago
No, I don't. Here the EU is creating legislation that forces manufacturers to increase interoperability, be more consumer-friendly, and more climate friendly. This all seems within the remit of governments to me. > I guess I just wonder if in 20 years will every device still have a USB-C port on it in some odd location? No one is using it anymore, but it is still mandatory on everything. Or course not, it's not like legislation is set in stone and will never change.
- m000 5y ago
  > Or course not, it's not like legislation is set in stone and will never change. Go tell that to Moses.
  - TheRealMoses 5y ago
    Hello, I am Moses. Those damned stone tablets could have been iPads, they sure were heavy.
- sidewndr46 5y ago
  I don't know enough about the EU to say if the laws will adapt. But in the US, I very much view it as once something is legislated it becomes a permanent fixture of our society.
  - toyg 5y ago
    This is already a change from previous legislation that effectively mandated micro-USB. So yeah, it can be done.
    - rglullis 5y ago
      Does it count if no one ever complied to this legislation? Where are the micro-usb iPhones?
      - lrem 5y ago
epistasis 5y ago
I think the expectation is that there will be additional rule changes to adapt to technology advancement. This isn't the sort of rule meant to last forever. The EU also has less of a problem with people being elected that try to prove that government doesn't work by intentionally making it work poorly.
snek_case 5y ago
You say that, but USB-A ports are close to 25 years old, and still plenty adequate for a lot of things, from headsets to audio interfaces to keyboard and mice. Devices with USB-A ports are still sold. I wish my MacBook Pro had some good old USB-A ports.
- sidewndr46 5y ago
  I actually feel USB-B is a very robust plug. But it is just so large that most devices nowadays don't have the real estate for it. The other advantage is that since it is so large, if you get dust and stuff in it you can often use something non-conductive to clean it out.
  - asddubs 5y ago
    yeah I only ever really see it on printers, and maybe larger external harddrives (although these days I would never buy an external hard drive that needs a power supply, what a hassle)
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
josefx 5y ago
The problem is that after years of everyone pulling their own shit we finally have USB C. Yet it seems as if a dozen companies still do their best to remain incompatible in various ways. No one wants USB C as permanent solution but the alternative hasn't worked out.
- grepfru_it 5y ago
  Because the usb-c spec had too much wiggle room. The bad apples will be fleshed out just like they were when usb 1.0 came out. I credit the MacBook and androids for going all usb-c to jumpstart that initiative
- adrr 5y ago
  USB C is a huge mess. I have at least 3 types of USB c cables. Standard USB C cables, Cables that can charge my MacBook Pro, and cables that can hook my pro to a dock. I understand the differences but try explaining the differences to your parents.
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > but try explaining the differences to your parents. Wheh my Boomer parents first got computers as adults, the number of radically different cables with the same connectors (especially DB9 or DB25) on the end was dizzying, as well as the set of different connectors, and remembering what each was for (or attaching tape and labelling whatever wasn’t the most common function with the same combination of connectors) was the norm. That's also been true (though the set of common connectors has evolved) for most Gen-X and early “Oregon Trail generation” Millenials. “Almost every cable is USB A to USB micro-B and fully interchangeable” was such a narrow slice of time that it's really only going to dominate your parents experience if they were late Millenials or early Gen-Z.
    - luma 5y ago
      It was far worse with phone chargers before the EU mandated USB, nearly every manufacturer had several different designs across their product lineup, none of which were compatible with each other.
diffeomorphism 5y ago
We already had the same rule with micro usb and no the "20 year problem" did not happen. General rule of thumb: If there is a really obvious issue, it is not only obvious to you and hence was already addressed.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
xdennis 5y ago
(I don't know if you are, but) this is what I find quite weird about Americans: they think it's unfair for the government to regulate a trillion dollar company, but they find nothing wrong when a company treats its platform like fiefdom (i.e. no rights for the users). You can be banned from Twitter for saying something like "men aren't women", but God forbid we reduce Apple's profits by making them not sell so many dongles. I think an individual should be prioritized over a company.
- zepto 5y ago
  In both cases, the government is not regulating the behavior of the company.
- Someone1234 5y ago
  That's because Europeans view "freedom" from an individual perspective, it doesn't distinguish who is causing its infringement (e.g. boss, neighbor, government, corporation, etc). Whereas in America "freedom" exclusively means "freedom [from government]." That's why when Europeans talk about "freedom" from your boss, Americans get confused. In America if you can privatize a thing (no matter how monopolistically) it isn't a "freedom" infringement (e.g. HOAs) because that isn't what the term freedom means there. That's why corporations run rampant in the US and the citizens continue to pushback on any government attempted intervention because that government intervention is viewed as a freedom-problem but the corporate invasion is not.
space_ghost 5y ago
Does anyone feel it is a little strange to have a government entity mandating interoperability details on every level of the tech stack? See POSIX for an example. I don't think it's strange at all.
- toyg 5y ago
  People forget stuff like ANSI or AES are effectively government-mandated standards...
justapassenger 5y ago
> I guess I just wonder if in 20 years will every device still have a USB-C port on it in some odd location? No one is using it anymore, but it is still mandatory on everything. I’ll love, that 20 years from now, I will be able to take a random device from today, buy an universal adapter for USB-C and it’ll just work.
bumbada 5y ago
>Does anyone feel it is a little strange to have a government entity mandating a physical interconnect? I believe governments mandating interactivity standards is one of the main reason of its existence. Before we had standards, like ISO on screws and so on mandated by governments, it was chaos. >But on a phone it acts as a data connection as well. Precisely, the data communication protocol should be open for anyone being able to interface with those devices without having to pay extortion rates for anything connected to a phone. The fact that Apple demands 30% of my income if I create a keyboard for a phone because they control the interface is outrageous.
majinuub 5y ago
Its not strange. However, I do think governments mandating it is an overstep and it should be strange. Then again, I am a voluntaryist living in the US so I'm pretty biased when it comes to government mandates.
- worrycue 5y ago
  I feel like it’s an overstep too. I don’t feel comfortable with bureaucrats determining which technology we should use. Going to stick my neck out, and some might say this is just a slippery slope fallacy, but should governments mandate choice of programming languages? It would certainly help interoperability and longevity of code - just like with connectors. Anyway on an emotion level it just feels wrong.
  - t43562 5y ago
    There's a problem - waste and people aren't solving it. So the government is trying.
    - worrycue 5y ago
      Surely there are better ways than mandating a very specific technology. It would be like building codes mandating the use of a very specific concrete mix instead of mandating that supporting members must be able to handle total expected load with a safety factor of 5 or something - I’m not a civil engineer.
      - acdha 5y ago
        This is a very popular industry standard with a well known path for updates – it seems pretty reasonable for the government to simply tell the stragglers to adopt it. Unlike the concrete in your example compatibility is a bigger concern - imagine if you needed special shoes to walk on AppleCrete - and the service lifetime is much shorter so waste is a very reasonable concern.
        5y ago
kurthr 5y ago
It'll be particularly hilarious, if everything on the phone (charging, audio, data) is wireless, but there's a USB-C port to nowhere sticking out one side.
- kurthr 5y ago
  To be fair the arstechnica article clearly calls out that devices with wireless charging won't be covered by the current regulation, though they may be regulated in the future. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/09/european-union-announces-plans-to-require-all-mobile-devices-to-use-usb-c/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/09/european-union-annou...
foxrider 5y ago
It worked really well for SCART in the past
capdeck 5y ago
Apple created very profitable side business of licensing its proprietary connector to anyone who wants to create an accessory to iPhones. Uber-strong commercial motivation will never incentivize Apple to do the right thing - which today is switch to USB-C. The amount of electronic trash that this side business generates has a huge tax on the environment, not to mention inconvenience and extra spend for iPhone users. While government regulation is usually the road to hell paved with good intentions, nothing else will force Apple to do the right thing. So, I guess, we'll have to choose "lesser evil"?
znpy 5y ago
It honestly feels strange that this hasn't arrived earlier. Think about going back to every device having its own proprietary charger, as it was in early 2000s: - mobile phone? branded charger, incompatible with everything else - mp3 player? branded charger, incompatible with everything else - boombox? branded charger, incompatible with everything else - cordless phone? branded charger, incompatible with everything else - cassette player? branded charger, incompatible with everything else That was dumb. With USB-c/thunderbolt able to do both power delivery and power-negotiation, there really is no honest reason to use a proprietary connector.
- selfhoster11 5y ago
  Don't forget Sony. Chargers that have different connectivity and voltage for almost every device.
- ziml77 5y ago
  And it the connector had essentially no relation to the voltage or current required by the device so you couldn't tell just by fit alone what was compatible with what. You could easily damage a device with too much voltage. USB-C might be unclear about what the cable and endpoints capabilities are, but it also won't damage anything to connect stuff together without knowing.
mindcrime 5y ago
Does anyone feel it is a little strange to have a government entity mandating a physical interconnect? Yes, absolutely.
cblconfederate 5y ago
Is it OK to mandate non-plastic packaging or paper straws?
corobo 5y ago
Imagine how great it would be if everything was USB-C Need a cable? Grab one. Sorted
_moof 5y ago
The FAA approach to something like this would be to incorporate an industry-defined standard by reference (e.g. altimeters "shall meet the standards set forth in SAE Aeronautical Standard AS 392C") which has the benefit of requiring that there be a standard component while leaving it up to an industry group to figure out specifically what that component should be. It's not perfect but in cases like this I think it's a better approach than explicitly requiring a particular technology, and it gives industry the freedom (within the constraints of its standards body) to redefine the standard without overly onerous regulatory machinations. I'll note though that new revisions still have to be incorporated by the regulatory body; they aren't automatic.
- kibwen 5y ago
  This is what the EU did. They gave the industry a decade to decide upon a uniform standard, and at the end of that decade Apple was the only holdout.
  - _moof 5y ago
    Ah, well then—nobody but themselves to blame, I suppose!
lol768 5y ago
The vast majority of people who seem to be finding this strange (and seem to have a misconception that laws don't and cannot adapt to technological progress once passed) appear to be American or (at the very least) have less day to day exposure to EU legislation and the regulatory landscape. I get the impression there's a rather striking cultural difference in terms of views on regulation and the overall purpose of government's activities. I personally welcome this proposal - like many others (GDPR, ePrivacy, data roaming) that have come before it it prioritises individuals over the wants of corporations.
beckman466 5y ago
> Does anyone feel it is a little strange to have a government entity mandating a physical interconnect? Does anyone feel it is a little strange to have a private company forcing users to use a black box physical interconnect; Apple's black box 'lightning' adapter? USB-C is a well developed standard.
deleted 5y ago
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MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
Is it weird the the government mandate vehicles need to have seatbelts?
qwerty456127 5y ago
I do, a little, and wouldn't say this is absolutely great. Nevertheless this seemingly proved to do much more good than evil. We would probably still have different power and data cables for every phone model if the EU didn't do this with USB-micro-B (I always wondered how did Apple manage to evade this for so long, even though I actually feel like Lightning and MagSafe are the best connectors phones and notebooks respectively ever had). Nevertheless I am excited about the rumors Apple is going to bring MagSafe back in the upcoming model of MacBooks. Perhaps they could do the way it's done in HP EliteBook - it can be charged both through a barrel adapter (could be MagSafe in case of Apple) and through USB-C (i.e. by a Thunderbolt dock). The only flaw of MagSafe I have to acknowledge is their ultra-thin cable is extremely vulnerable and you can't easily put a heat-shrink tube on it because the receptacle is so many times bigger.
BiteCode_dev 5y ago
I don't worry about multi billions dollar company having to lobby a little more to update the default port format in 10 years. They are good at it. I do worry about the invisible hand of the market not being a good balance for interoperability or sustainability.
ivoras 5y ago
Think of it as wall plugs. You wouldn't want every device and every power plant to require their own type of plug, right?
lmilcin 5y ago
Nothing strange there. There is already a lot of mandates like that. If you look at your house, almost every single piece of cable, pipe or joint, and so on is standardized so that you can connect stuff from different manufacturers and it will fit and not blow up on you. Then the correct ways to connect stuff together are standardized. Then the people who do these things are going through standardized certification. You don't need to buy different wall sockets to connect up different appliances because the sockets are standardized and your country decided to mandate that all appliances must follow specific rules and choose only from available standardized options when connecting to AC. See, it is so ubiquitous that you don't think about it. You don't need to think about it because somebody at some point stepped in and said that it is not ok to have every manufacturer to have their own standard and homeowners to bear the cost of navigating those multiple standards.
throwaddzuzxd 5y ago
I honestly don't know. On one hand I'd love for a standard used by everyone, but on the other hand I fear it'll limit innovation. What if Apple want to sell a full wireless phone with MagSafe only for instance? What if someone invents something better than USB-C? I'd like an alternative where manufacturers have to sell their products with USB-C, but they can sell the same product with something else if they want (eg. Apple would sell iPhone xx USB-C, iPhone xx Lightning, iPhone xx MagSafe... but they'd be forced to sell an USB-C variant)
occamrazor 5y ago
The EU also mandates the connectors for charging electric cars. It is a good thing.

cherrycherry98 5y ago

Ports types have been converging naturally without government intervention. Even for iPhones, the writing is on the wall for the the lightning connector. It was introduced nearly 10 years ago under different market conditions (no equivalent USB standard existed). Apple is gradually converging on USB-C, MacBooks contain only USB-C ports, the iPad Pro uses USB-C instead of lightning. The rest of the product line can't be far behind given their propensity for simplicity, being able to use one cable for everything fits well with that. To answer the EU Commission's question, "Are your chargers piling up in a drawer?". No, I have far less chargers than 10 or 15 years ago when my laptop, digital camera, game system, and phone all had different connectors. Now my laptop, game system (Switch), and phone all use USB-C (phone has absorbed the digital camera). My Kindle is microUSB but newer ones are USB-C as well.

selfhoster11 5y ago
They have been converging way too slowly, and wouldn't have converged as close to one standard without an intervention.
wyager 5y ago
> Ports types have been converging naturally without government intervention. Agreed, so why bother with government intervention? The benefit is small and the potential long-term costs associated with retarding technological development are high.
galgalesh 5y ago
I think you greatly underestimate how much of this "natural convergence" happened because of EU influence. See the memorandum of understanding of 2009. https://ec.europa.eu/growth/sectors/electrical-engineering/red-directive/common-charger_en https://ec.europa.eu/growth/sectors/electrical-engineering/r...
- cherrycherry98 5y ago
  An MoU is not legislation, it's agreement to work together on a common goal. It can be helpful but isn't binding. From the MoU: "The Signatories retain the right to withdraw from this MoU at any time with immediate effect." I was demonstrating convergence on USB-C across digital devices. An MoU from 2009 of phone manufacturers agreeing to use microUSB can only partially explain that. Maybe it helped give the idea of USB charging additional momentum. Maybe it would have happened anyway as microUSB was only itself introduced in 2007, and the phone landscape was transitioning to smart phones at this time.

ubercow13 5y ago

The government already mandates the electricity interconnect one step back at the wall socket. This is just extending that to modern devices.

ravenstine 5y ago
I guess it depends on how far you want it to go. If electric sockets aren't standard then that creates bottlenecks in infrastructure interchangeability. To me, I don't see why government has any business in USB. Bluetooth maybe since it takes up the air. But USB? It's bad enough that wall sockets haven't improved. Will we be stuck with USB-C long after its natural EOL?
- adtac 5y ago
  smartphones are critical to living life in most developed countries. it's the same level of utility as electricity at this point. I don't see anything wrong with requiring a standard port.
- mschuster91 5y ago
  > It's bad enough that wall sockets haven't improved There's not much need for that, to be honest, at least not for Continental Europe where the Schuko plug system is dominant. It's reasonably secure against children and offers enough capacity for all household loads, and industrial applications have all converged on the bulky IEC-60309/CEE-17 plugs. Sometimes, a product is simply "good enough" and does not require further improvements (or alternatively, a better solution exists, but the cost for retrofitting is prohibitively large).
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- selfhoster11 5y ago
  Legislation is not eternal. When USB-C outlives its usefulness, it can be legislated away in favour of a different standard. Or they could let a standards/industrial body make the binding decision.

GordonS 5y ago

No, I don't. Here the EU is creating legislation that forces manufacturers to increase interoperability, be more consumer-friendly, and more climate friendly. This all seems within the remit of governments to me. > I guess I just wonder if in 20 years will every device still have a USB-C port on it in some odd location? No one is using it anymore, but it is still mandatory on everything. Or course not, it's not like legislation is set in stone and will never change.

m000 5y ago
> Or course not, it's not like legislation is set in stone and will never change. Go tell that to Moses.
- TheRealMoses 5y ago
  Hello, I am Moses. Those damned stone tablets could have been iPads, they sure were heavy.
sidewndr46 5y ago
I don't know enough about the EU to say if the laws will adapt. But in the US, I very much view it as once something is legislated it becomes a permanent fixture of our society.
- toyg 5y ago
  This is already a change from previous legislation that effectively mandated micro-USB. So yeah, it can be done.
  - rglullis 5y ago
    Does it count if no one ever complied to this legislation? Where are the micro-usb iPhones?
    - lrem 5y ago

epistasis 5y ago

I think the expectation is that there will be additional rule changes to adapt to technology advancement. This isn't the sort of rule meant to last forever. The EU also has less of a problem with people being elected that try to prove that government doesn't work by intentionally making it work poorly.

snek_case 5y ago

You say that, but USB-A ports are close to 25 years old, and still plenty adequate for a lot of things, from headsets to audio interfaces to keyboard and mice. Devices with USB-A ports are still sold. I wish my MacBook Pro had some good old USB-A ports.

sidewndr46 5y ago
I actually feel USB-B is a very robust plug. But it is just so large that most devices nowadays don't have the real estate for it. The other advantage is that since it is so large, if you get dust and stuff in it you can often use something non-conductive to clean it out.
- asddubs 5y ago
  yeah I only ever really see it on printers, and maybe larger external harddrives (although these days I would never buy an external hard drive that needs a power supply, what a hassle)

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

josefx 5y ago

The problem is that after years of everyone pulling their own shit we finally have USB C. Yet it seems as if a dozen companies still do their best to remain incompatible in various ways. No one wants USB C as permanent solution but the alternative hasn't worked out.

grepfru_it 5y ago
Because the usb-c spec had too much wiggle room. The bad apples will be fleshed out just like they were when usb 1.0 came out. I credit the MacBook and androids for going all usb-c to jumpstart that initiative
adrr 5y ago
USB C is a huge mess. I have at least 3 types of USB c cables. Standard USB C cables, Cables that can charge my MacBook Pro, and cables that can hook my pro to a dock. I understand the differences but try explaining the differences to your parents.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > but try explaining the differences to your parents. Wheh my Boomer parents first got computers as adults, the number of radically different cables with the same connectors (especially DB9 or DB25) on the end was dizzying, as well as the set of different connectors, and remembering what each was for (or attaching tape and labelling whatever wasn’t the most common function with the same combination of connectors) was the norm. That's also been true (though the set of common connectors has evolved) for most Gen-X and early “Oregon Trail generation” Millenials. “Almost every cable is USB A to USB micro-B and fully interchangeable” was such a narrow slice of time that it's really only going to dominate your parents experience if they were late Millenials or early Gen-Z.
  - luma 5y ago
    It was far worse with phone chargers before the EU mandated USB, nearly every manufacturer had several different designs across their product lineup, none of which were compatible with each other.

diffeomorphism 5y ago

We already had the same rule with micro usb and no the "20 year problem" did not happen. General rule of thumb: If there is a really obvious issue, it is not only obvious to you and hence was already addressed.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

xdennis 5y ago

(I don't know if you are, but) this is what I find quite weird about Americans: they think it's unfair for the government to regulate a trillion dollar company, but they find nothing wrong when a company treats its platform like fiefdom (i.e. no rights for the users). You can be banned from Twitter for saying something like "men aren't women", but God forbid we reduce Apple's profits by making them not sell so many dongles. I think an individual should be prioritized over a company.

zepto 5y ago
In both cases, the government is not regulating the behavior of the company.
Someone1234 5y ago
That's because Europeans view "freedom" from an individual perspective, it doesn't distinguish who is causing its infringement (e.g. boss, neighbor, government, corporation, etc). Whereas in America "freedom" exclusively means "freedom [from government]." That's why when Europeans talk about "freedom" from your boss, Americans get confused. In America if you can privatize a thing (no matter how monopolistically) it isn't a "freedom" infringement (e.g. HOAs) because that isn't what the term freedom means there. That's why corporations run rampant in the US and the citizens continue to pushback on any government attempted intervention because that government intervention is viewed as a freedom-problem but the corporate invasion is not.

space_ghost 5y ago

Does anyone feel it is a little strange to have a government entity mandating interoperability details on every level of the tech stack? See POSIX for an example. I don't think it's strange at all.

toyg 5y ago
People forget stuff like ANSI or AES are effectively government-mandated standards...

justapassenger 5y ago

> I guess I just wonder if in 20 years will every device still have a USB-C port on it in some odd location? No one is using it anymore, but it is still mandatory on everything. I’ll love, that 20 years from now, I will be able to take a random device from today, buy an universal adapter for USB-C and it’ll just work.

bumbada 5y ago

>Does anyone feel it is a little strange to have a government entity mandating a physical interconnect? I believe governments mandating interactivity standards is one of the main reason of its existence. Before we had standards, like ISO on screws and so on mandated by governments, it was chaos. >But on a phone it acts as a data connection as well. Precisely, the data communication protocol should be open for anyone being able to interface with those devices without having to pay extortion rates for anything connected to a phone. The fact that Apple demands 30% of my income if I create a keyboard for a phone because they control the interface is outrageous.

majinuub 5y ago

Its not strange. However, I do think governments mandating it is an overstep and it should be strange. Then again, I am a voluntaryist living in the US so I'm pretty biased when it comes to government mandates.

worrycue 5y ago
I feel like it’s an overstep too. I don’t feel comfortable with bureaucrats determining which technology we should use. Going to stick my neck out, and some might say this is just a slippery slope fallacy, but should governments mandate choice of programming languages? It would certainly help interoperability and longevity of code - just like with connectors. Anyway on an emotion level it just feels wrong.
- t43562 5y ago
  There's a problem - waste and people aren't solving it. So the government is trying.
  - worrycue 5y ago
    Surely there are better ways than mandating a very specific technology. It would be like building codes mandating the use of a very specific concrete mix instead of mandating that supporting members must be able to handle total expected load with a safety factor of 5 or something - I’m not a civil engineer.
    - acdha 5y ago
      This is a very popular industry standard with a well known path for updates – it seems pretty reasonable for the government to simply tell the stragglers to adopt it. Unlike the concrete in your example compatibility is a bigger concern - imagine if you needed special shoes to walk on AppleCrete - and the service lifetime is much shorter so waste is a very reasonable concern.
      - 5y ago

kurthr 5y ago

It'll be particularly hilarious, if everything on the phone (charging, audio, data) is wireless, but there's a USB-C port to nowhere sticking out one side.

kurthr 5y ago
To be fair the arstechnica article clearly calls out that devices with wireless charging won't be covered by the current regulation, though they may be regulated in the future. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/09/european-union-announces-plans-to-require-all-mobile-devices-to-use-usb-c/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/09/european-union-annou...

foxrider 5y ago

It worked really well for SCART in the past

capdeck 5y ago

Apple created very profitable side business of licensing its proprietary connector to anyone who wants to create an accessory to iPhones. Uber-strong commercial motivation will never incentivize Apple to do the right thing - which today is switch to USB-C. The amount of electronic trash that this side business generates has a huge tax on the environment, not to mention inconvenience and extra spend for iPhone users. While government regulation is usually the road to hell paved with good intentions, nothing else will force Apple to do the right thing. So, I guess, we'll have to choose "lesser evil"?

znpy 5y ago

It honestly feels strange that this hasn't arrived earlier. Think about going back to every device having its own proprietary charger, as it was in early 2000s: - mobile phone? branded charger, incompatible with everything else - mp3 player? branded charger, incompatible with everything else - boombox? branded charger, incompatible with everything else - cordless phone? branded charger, incompatible with everything else - cassette player? branded charger, incompatible with everything else That was dumb. With USB-c/thunderbolt able to do both power delivery and power-negotiation, there really is no honest reason to use a proprietary connector.

selfhoster11 5y ago
Don't forget Sony. Chargers that have different connectivity and voltage for almost every device.
ziml77 5y ago
And it the connector had essentially no relation to the voltage or current required by the device so you couldn't tell just by fit alone what was compatible with what. You could easily damage a device with too much voltage. USB-C might be unclear about what the cable and endpoints capabilities are, but it also won't damage anything to connect stuff together without knowing.

mindcrime 5y ago

Does anyone feel it is a little strange to have a government entity mandating a physical interconnect? Yes, absolutely.

cblconfederate 5y ago

Is it OK to mandate non-plastic packaging or paper straws?

corobo 5y ago

Imagine how great it would be if everything was USB-C Need a cable? Grab one. Sorted

_moof 5y ago

The FAA approach to something like this would be to incorporate an industry-defined standard by reference (e.g. altimeters "shall meet the standards set forth in SAE Aeronautical Standard AS 392C") which has the benefit of requiring that there be a standard component while leaving it up to an industry group to figure out specifically what that component should be. It's not perfect but in cases like this I think it's a better approach than explicitly requiring a particular technology, and it gives industry the freedom (within the constraints of its standards body) to redefine the standard without overly onerous regulatory machinations. I'll note though that new revisions still have to be incorporated by the regulatory body; they aren't automatic.

kibwen 5y ago
This is what the EU did. They gave the industry a decade to decide upon a uniform standard, and at the end of that decade Apple was the only holdout.
- _moof 5y ago
  Ah, well then—nobody but themselves to blame, I suppose!

lol768 5y ago

The vast majority of people who seem to be finding this strange (and seem to have a misconception that laws don't and cannot adapt to technological progress once passed) appear to be American or (at the very least) have less day to day exposure to EU legislation and the regulatory landscape. I get the impression there's a rather striking cultural difference in terms of views on regulation and the overall purpose of government's activities. I personally welcome this proposal - like many others (GDPR, ePrivacy, data roaming) that have come before it it prioritises individuals over the wants of corporations.

beckman466 5y ago

> Does anyone feel it is a little strange to have a government entity mandating a physical interconnect? Does anyone feel it is a little strange to have a private company forcing users to use a black box physical interconnect; Apple's black box 'lightning' adapter? USB-C is a well developed standard.

deleted 5y ago

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MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago

Is it weird the the government mandate vehicles need to have seatbelts?

qwerty456127 5y ago

I do, a little, and wouldn't say this is absolutely great. Nevertheless this seemingly proved to do much more good than evil. We would probably still have different power and data cables for every phone model if the EU didn't do this with USB-micro-B (I always wondered how did Apple manage to evade this for so long, even though I actually feel like Lightning and MagSafe are the best connectors phones and notebooks respectively ever had). Nevertheless I am excited about the rumors Apple is going to bring MagSafe back in the upcoming model of MacBooks. Perhaps they could do the way it's done in HP EliteBook - it can be charged both through a barrel adapter (could be MagSafe in case of Apple) and through USB-C (i.e. by a Thunderbolt dock). The only flaw of MagSafe I have to acknowledge is their ultra-thin cable is extremely vulnerable and you can't easily put a heat-shrink tube on it because the receptacle is so many times bigger.

BiteCode_dev 5y ago

I don't worry about multi billions dollar company having to lobby a little more to update the default port format in 10 years. They are good at it. I do worry about the invisible hand of the market not being a good balance for interoperability or sustainability.

ivoras 5y ago

Think of it as wall plugs. You wouldn't want every device and every power plant to require their own type of plug, right?

lmilcin 5y ago

Nothing strange there. There is already a lot of mandates like that. If you look at your house, almost every single piece of cable, pipe or joint, and so on is standardized so that you can connect stuff from different manufacturers and it will fit and not blow up on you. Then the correct ways to connect stuff together are standardized. Then the people who do these things are going through standardized certification. You don't need to buy different wall sockets to connect up different appliances because the sockets are standardized and your country decided to mandate that all appliances must follow specific rules and choose only from available standardized options when connecting to AC. See, it is so ubiquitous that you don't think about it. You don't need to think about it because somebody at some point stepped in and said that it is not ok to have every manufacturer to have their own standard and homeowners to bear the cost of navigating those multiple standards.

throwaddzuzxd 5y ago

I honestly don't know. On one hand I'd love for a standard used by everyone, but on the other hand I fear it'll limit innovation. What if Apple want to sell a full wireless phone with MagSafe only for instance? What if someone invents something better than USB-C? I'd like an alternative where manufacturers have to sell their products with USB-C, but they can sell the same product with something else if they want (eg. Apple would sell iPhone xx USB-C, iPhone xx Lightning, iPhone xx MagSafe... but they'd be forced to sell an USB-C variant)

occamrazor 5y ago

The EU also mandates the connectors for charging electric cars. It is a good thing.