> The hacker in me hates the idea of enforcing something like this, but poor interoperability is such a pain that it would be nice to have stronger guarantees.

> The hacker in me hates the idea of enforcing something like this, but poor interoperability is such a pain that it would be nice to have stronger guarantees. For pure consumer products (whatever that means) safety standards are quite reasonable. There are already legal requirements in the USA that plugs have certain shapes controlling orientation, grounding, and expected voltage, as well as building code so that people don’t trip over long power cables. Food safety means you can pick up something at the shop and have some faith it won’t kill you. This reduces cognitive overhead and doesn’t require you to be an expert in every domain. It also doesn’t stop you from hacking your own stuff (mostly — please don’t mix ammonia and bleach!) and easily provides you a bunch of dependable items on which you can build your hacks. So you can (briefly!) supply 100 amps of 240V AC over USB A at home if you want, you just can’t sell it. You can make yoghurt at home and store it on the counter in the sun if you want, no problem.