> But we must rather ask What would be the _incentive_ (from markets or culture) that would make everyone all happy families again? Given a timespan of about h

> But we must rather ask What would be the _incentive_ (from markets or culture) that would make everyone all happy families again? Given a timespan of about half-a-century to make it's own decisions, apparently government regulation is the only thing that can compel them. Look at the largest companies in the world and tell me I'm wrong. No matter how slow you boil the frog, successful businesses will never step up and do the right thing. > Ergo, what was the thing that made standards and interoperability such wonderful things in the first place that we created them? See, this is backwards thinking. Order is not native to the world; nobody invents a new CPU architecture and magically has standards get drafted into thin-air. Standardization is the alternative to chaotic iteration. When too much changes for too few reasons, an agreeable framework is standardized and used as the basis for future iterations. The incentive to change things is the fact that the status quo sucks. That alone is enough; nobody is naive for expecting better out of the most successful businesses in the world. Leaving them to write their own playbook ends in asinine power-moves like proprietary serial connectors and user exploitation. It's not realistic or amicable; that's why the government has to step in.