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> When USB-C outlives its usefulness, it can be legislated away in favour of a different standard. When USB-C outlives its usefulness there won't be any ready-
by nybble41 5y ago
> When USB-C outlives its usefulness, it can be legislated away in favour of a different standard.
When USB-C outlives its usefulness there won't be any ready-made standard for the legislation to switch to. Or at least if there is such a standard it won't come from the EU, or any other jurisdiction with similar regulations. Why would anyone develop a new standard for mobile devices when the law says they have to use USB-C? There are more profitable ways to spend the limited R&D budget than designing new ports which you might not ever be allowed to use.
- selfhoster11 5y agoThe payoff is huge. Assuming that your connector will be allowed to charge royalties, you can make the money on the fact that literally every phone will be using it once you lobby to update the standard. Besides that, whichever organization is behind USB is the obvious candidate. A new standard that's backwards compatible with the old one (because that's what consumers are likely after) except for the connector is best made by the org that developed the previous version of it.
- nybble41 5y agoSure, the payoff is huge if you can charge royalties, but so is the risk. You don't want to be the one that spends tons of money to develop a new standard only to have someone else's design chosen. You're also limited in how much real-world testing you can do since you can't market devices with the new connector to the public until the law is changed. And if the government is going to mandate that everyone use a certain kind of port then it ought to be made available royalty-free, which removes the prospect of a huge payoff.