3 ms·

There should be no need whatsoever to convince your competitors and/or bureaucrats that allowing your new connector to be produced is in their interest. Only on

by jules 1y ago

There should be no need whatsoever to convince your competitors and/or bureaucrats that allowing your new connector to be produced is in their interest. Only one should be convinced: the person buying the device.

skylurk 1y ago
If Apple made both USB-C and Lightning variants and let people choose: then sure, let the market decide. In reality an oligopoly was stuck in a crappy stalemate and people had only compromised options. Carrying two sets of wires everywhere sucked.
Epa095 1y ago
We tried that for 40 years. The result is drawers full of chargers. But clearly there is a price for the standardisation, it makes progress slower. On the other hand it makes everyone's lifes easier. Just as with e.g electrical outlets in the house there is a time for exploration and innovation, and there is a time for standardisation. And we are ready for standardisation now, USB-c is good enough.
- wqaatwt 1y ago
  > We tried that for 40 years. The result is drawers full of chargers. Which is a fine? The industry eventually converged to just a handful of common standards on its own. You can’t innovate without being able to experiment. Which is only possible if there are actual people using your product. Thinking that a committee of bureaucrats can replace that is silly.
  - saubeidl 1y ago
    A handful of common standards is useless. One standard for chargers is the only acceptable outcome and it wouldn't have gotten there without regulation. What need is there to experiment with chargers? Wire go in, power go through - it's really not that complicated, the only important thing is standardization.
    - wqaatwt 1y ago
      > What need is there to experiment with chargers? That’s the point, I have no clue. But we might still be stuck with floppy drives with a mindset like that. Although as a physical connector usb-c is far from perfect. IMHO lighting seemed nicer in some ways.
      - saubeidl 1y ago
        > But we might still be stuck with floppy drives with a mindset like that. That seems like a false equivalency to me. It seems quite obvious that storage media have more potential for development than charging wires. Wire go in - power go through, is literally all they need to do and USB-C does that pretty well.
        3836293648 1y ago
        No, it's cable go in, power go through, *cable doesn't fall out* and usb-c does that terribly after a few months. I'm extremely pro standardisation, but the next revision needs to do a lot better.
    - qcnguy 1y ago
      MagSafe is a superior power connector in every way.
- jules 1y ago
  USB-c is absolutely not good enough. The connectors are often incompatible due to tiny manufacturing tolerances, cables from different manufacturers often fall out of the port after longer term use, don't make good connection so you have flaky charging, the cables and connectors look the same but are actually incompatible due to supporting only USB 2/3/4 or thunderbolt, whether displayport/hdmi alt mode is supported, etc. This small short-term gain at the cost of locking in USB-c forever was a terrible idea, brought to you by the same hypercompetent group that mandated cookie banners.
  - eliaspro 1y ago
    Cookie-banners were never mandated. It's just a fucking stupid way by the website operators, trying to circumvent data privacy regulation. And when it comes to USB-C. Sure, it's far from perfect, but it's a great foundation to built upon and improve.
    - shivasaxena 1y ago
      [dead]
    - qcnguy 1y ago
      [flagged]
      - tomhow 1y ago
        Please don't fulminate on HN. You may not owe cookie banners better, but we're trying for a better style of conversation here. Please make an effort to observe the guidelines, which seek to make HN a place for curious conversation, not rage. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - jules 1y ago
      That's the point, the regulation effectively locks in USB-C as it is.
saubeidl 1y ago
The "bureaucrats" are a proxy for the person buying the device. That's literally the point of representative democracy. The average person doesn't want to make a million decisions on technical standards, so they elect somebody they trust to make them for them.

by jules 1y ago

skylurk 1y ago

If Apple made both USB-C and Lightning variants and let people choose: then sure, let the market decide. In reality an oligopoly was stuck in a crappy stalemate and people had only compromised options. Carrying two sets of wires everywhere sucked.

Epa095 1y ago

We tried that for 40 years. The result is drawers full of chargers. But clearly there is a price for the standardisation, it makes progress slower. On the other hand it makes everyone's lifes easier. Just as with e.g electrical outlets in the house there is a time for exploration and innovation, and there is a time for standardisation. And we are ready for standardisation now, USB-c is good enough.

wqaatwt 1y ago
> We tried that for 40 years. The result is drawers full of chargers. Which is a fine? The industry eventually converged to just a handful of common standards on its own. You can’t innovate without being able to experiment. Which is only possible if there are actual people using your product. Thinking that a committee of bureaucrats can replace that is silly.
- saubeidl 1y ago
  A handful of common standards is useless. One standard for chargers is the only acceptable outcome and it wouldn't have gotten there without regulation. What need is there to experiment with chargers? Wire go in, power go through - it's really not that complicated, the only important thing is standardization.
  - wqaatwt 1y ago
    > What need is there to experiment with chargers? That’s the point, I have no clue. But we might still be stuck with floppy drives with a mindset like that. Although as a physical connector usb-c is far from perfect. IMHO lighting seemed nicer in some ways.
    - saubeidl 1y ago
      > But we might still be stuck with floppy drives with a mindset like that. That seems like a false equivalency to me. It seems quite obvious that storage media have more potential for development than charging wires. Wire go in - power go through, is literally all they need to do and USB-C does that pretty well.
      - 3836293648 1y ago
        No, it's cable go in, power go through, *cable doesn't fall out* and usb-c does that terribly after a few months. I'm extremely pro standardisation, but the next revision needs to do a lot better.
  - qcnguy 1y ago
    MagSafe is a superior power connector in every way.
jules 1y ago
USB-c is absolutely not good enough. The connectors are often incompatible due to tiny manufacturing tolerances, cables from different manufacturers often fall out of the port after longer term use, don't make good connection so you have flaky charging, the cables and connectors look the same but are actually incompatible due to supporting only USB 2/3/4 or thunderbolt, whether displayport/hdmi alt mode is supported, etc. This small short-term gain at the cost of locking in USB-c forever was a terrible idea, brought to you by the same hypercompetent group that mandated cookie banners.
- eliaspro 1y ago
  Cookie-banners were never mandated. It's just a fucking stupid way by the website operators, trying to circumvent data privacy regulation. And when it comes to USB-C. Sure, it's far from perfect, but it's a great foundation to built upon and improve.
  - shivasaxena 1y ago
    [dead]
  - qcnguy 1y ago
    [flagged]
    - tomhow 1y ago
      Please don't fulminate on HN. You may not owe cookie banners better, but we're trying for a better style of conversation here. Please make an effort to observe the guidelines, which seek to make HN a place for curious conversation, not rage. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - jules 1y ago
    That's the point, the regulation effectively locks in USB-C as it is.

saubeidl 1y ago

The "bureaucrats" are a proxy for the person buying the device. That's literally the point of representative democracy. The average person doesn't want to make a million decisions on technical standards, so they elect somebody they trust to make them for them.