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> being granted a monopoly Anyone can produce USB-C chargers. That's not a monopoly. This will effectively enable competition on the charging market, since the

> being granted a monopoly Anyone can produce USB-C chargers. That's not a monopoly. This will effectively enable competition on the charging market, since the big players can't bind their products to their own proprietary chargers anymore. Have you ever felt the Apple/Microsoft charger to be lacking in some way? Breaking easily, too long cords, too short, wrong color, too expensive? Congratulations now you can make and sell those better chargers. Before, this was not possible.

ericmay 4y ago
Yes but all you’re really doing is encouraging everyone to stay locked in to a USB-C market. This isn’t enabling competition in the charging market, it’s eliminating or hamstringing competing markets. You won’t create a new charging apparatus because you’re legally required to use USB-C. "What if we created a charging cable that did X,Y,Z?" "That would be cool but we have to use USB-C" > Have you ever felt the Apple/Microsoft charger to be lacking in some way? Breaking easily, too long cords, too short, wrong color, too expensive? No not really. In fact I’ve found most third-party products to be godawful. Good luck not buying something fraudulent on Amazon.com. But also, I’m not really sure what you are talking about. Companies sell charging equipment and cords now anyway. Everything has trade-offs. I’m skeptical of the necessity of this regulation, especially given that the only holdout that anyone cares about is Apple and they’ve been adopting USB-C in all of their products over time. One benefit though will be manufacturers won’t include charging cables with new devices anymore. So that will further reduce waste. Wouldn’t be surprised to see lobbying behind the scenes from companies such as Apple to implement regulations like this so they can save money. I kind of like this as an investor because now you can save money by not including a cable (or maybe you still do and it’s just some cheap one for now) and then you go and up sell wireless chargers instead.

ericmay 4y ago

Yes but all you’re really doing is encouraging everyone to stay locked in to a USB-C market. This isn’t enabling competition in the charging market, it’s eliminating or hamstringing competing markets. You won’t create a new charging apparatus because you’re legally required to use USB-C. "What if we created a charging cable that did X,Y,Z?" "That would be cool but we have to use USB-C" > Have you ever felt the Apple/Microsoft charger to be lacking in some way? Breaking easily, too long cords, too short, wrong color, too expensive? No not really. In fact I’ve found most third-party products to be godawful. Good luck not buying something fraudulent on Amazon.com. But also, I’m not really sure what you are talking about. Companies sell charging equipment and cords now anyway. Everything has trade-offs. I’m skeptical of the necessity of this regulation, especially given that the only holdout that anyone cares about is Apple and they’ve been adopting USB-C in all of their products over time. One benefit though will be manufacturers won’t include charging cables with new devices anymore. So that will further reduce waste. Wouldn’t be surprised to see lobbying behind the scenes from companies such as Apple to implement regulations like this so they can save money. I kind of like this as an investor because now you can save money by not including a cable (or maybe you still do and it’s just some cheap one for now) and then you go and up sell wireless chargers instead.