Switzerland Moves Toward a Universal Phone Charger Standard (vice.com)

Press2ToContinue writes: Apple's Lightning cable cartel be damned: Switzerland is moving forward with a plan for a single, universal phone charger across the country, standardizing phone chargers across the board. While the exact standard hasn't been mentioned yet, it wouldn't be hard to guess the standard: Micro USB, used across phone platforms, most especially Android, which has a gigantic chunk of the cell phone market worldwide.

The likely loser? Apple, which has relied on proprietary chargers since introducing the iPhone in 2007. While many companies have tried releasing generic cables, Apple often relies on DRM software to ensure that it's an Apple certified cable, charging $19 a piece for the Lightning charger used by the iPhone 5 and 6 and similar models.

What do you think -- are government-mandated standards for chargers a good idea? Despite the success of the standard household 3-prong electrical plug, doesn't this hamper progress? China seems to have done most of the work on the wall-circuit side of the equation,several years ago. But as to the "standard" 3-prong plug, any particular plug type is only as universal as the sockets and voltages they supply.

Comments

No

[Anonymous Coward]

Switzerland movies nothing, our Government just tries to suck up to the EU wherever they can and copy their laws... and, it just mandates a USB-Plug *on the charger*, so even for the crap from Cuppertino it does not change anything...

Re: No

[Anonymous Coward]

True that.

With emphasis on sucking up, which our Conseille Federale for the Interior takes quite literally, although to be fair it is EU president Juncker who usually sucks up to her, technically speaking.

Note I wrote Conseille because by law Switzerland does *not* have a government. Instead we have a group of 7 heads of the executive branch. In fact by the powers of the Swiss Constitution they are at the lowest level of state pillars, with the souvereign at the top, followed by the head of parliament, the parliament's two chambers and the secretary of state. Despite all of this, the 7 like to call themselves Ministers these days, which however is a misnomer and a stark misrepresentation of their duties (which are to implement, and nothing but that, what the parliament and above all the souvereign, i.e. the people of Switzerland, have decided).

Now, as is well known if you name your position wrongly you end up doing the wrong thing. It should come as no surprise then these rather peculiar group of 7 has not done for years what is their duty, namely they have not implemented quite a few laws that were decided in referendums. Of course such behavior doesn't go unnoticed, and it has resulted in the most conservative party's biggest win in the recent elections, at 29 odd % of votes nation-wide.

With this backdrop, just after the elections were over with and with Xmas approaching fast, the 7 Conseils probably found in their deliberations that they should at least appear to be doing their deeds from time to time. Void of any better ideas they set on to solve a problem they thought the general public was still fretting about. Luckily for the general public, industry has solved the problem about ten years ago by generally adopting USB plugs in the charger end of most devices' cables. As a result the self proclaimed good deed of our 7 mostly overestimated public state figures, albeit well intended, backfired big time, yielding an opportunity once again to become the laughing stock of private conversations throughout the country. Hell, it even made it one /. FCOL

In case you wonder why the Swiss let such a group of clowns continue their miserable work it is but for two reasons. One, we are generally not imposing ourselves on others while they are busy going about their day, as long as it doesn't cause too much of a fuss. 2, for the most part it is good entertainment and those elected into this inglourious club are generally the same who are thought to be best removed from whatever position they held before, as there is virtually no other place in the country where you can do less harm than as a member of the non-existing Swiss Government...

Re:No

[AmiMoJo]

Yep. The EU has had this for years, it's the reason why Apple was forced to supply a free USB adapter cable there. It's a good idea, stops chargers going to landfill as soon as the product dies.

Re: No

[Sique]

We had that "let innovation run and the market will decide" for two decades, and the result was that we had new formats for charger, plugs and phone sockets twice a year, and none of them actually got more functionality. But instead we had cars full of 12 V plug-ins, we went frantically to the next store when we found out that the one charger we just need was broken or left at home. Our drawers filled with cables and converters and plugs, and we couldn't remember which device belongs to which.

Now I have exactly one plug in my car, it features two USB ports, and I can charge about everything, camera, each phone of my family, the tablets, and even my shaver. And I have three chargers, and they are sufficient to power all the devices too, and they will fit to each of them.

Sorry, mate. Chargers, plugs and cables were the sign of a big market failure. It was like the old times in the U.S. rail before the Great Pacific Railway, when going from Philadelphia to Charleston required seven changes of trains because of different gauges.

Re:No

[DigiShaman]

...it just mandates a USB-Plug *on the charger*, so even for the crap from Cuppertino it does not change anything...

No, it actually does. The new MacBook charger uses USB-C, as will the new iPhone 7. Lightning (connector) is dead. Even if Apple were to release it as a royalty free open standard today, the industry momentum is already in motion. That ship sailed.

Re:No

[macs4all]

...it just mandates a USB-Plug *on the charger*, so even for the crap from Cuppertino it does not change anything...

No, it actually does. The new MacBook charger uses USB-C, as will the new iPhone 7. Lightning (connector) is dead. Even if Apple were to release it as a royalty free open standard today, the industry momentum is already in motion. That ship sailed.

You say that Apple is all about USB-C. Well, they have it on exactly ONE product. And even after recent product refreshes on the MacBook Pro line, we still haven't seen USB-C used even as an adjunct to the Thunderbolt connector (yes, I know we're talking most about Lightning, but...).

So, unless you have some serious insider knowledge that the rest of us aren't privy to, you are pulling that "information" regarding USB-C on the iPhone 7 and the "demise of Lightning" straight out of your ass.

For one thing, USB-C is a MUCH larger connector than Lightning, and that simply doesn't fit well with Apple's penchant for making the iPhone and iPad thinner and thinner.

If Apple would do anything, it would be to add a couple of pins to the Lightning cable and make it into a Thunderbolt interface. The additional signal bandwidth would be much appreciated by the rest of Apple's engineering teams, especially the video adapter people.

Re:No

[DigiShaman]

You're looking at it all wrong. This has nothing to do with which is better, it has everything to do with the law! In the past (and maybe now not, not sure), there where two versions of the same car for the US market; the California edition which contained extra catalytic converters and emission control hardware, and the US edition for the other 49 states. Technology has come a long away that I doubt that's still the case, but chime in if you know. Anyways, Apple would is only going USB-C in order to not have to make a separate EU productions run. So going with the common denominator, the only single production run at the factory will, in fact, be USB-C in the future...as I understand it now.

Re:No

[Kartu]

All Android phones around me and even Sony RX100 III camera work just fine with Micro USB socket, so could you be more specific on who decided to "refuse to support it any longer"

Re:No

[Plumpaquatsch]

All Android phones around me and even Sony RX100 III camera work just fine with Micro USB socket, so could you be more specific on who decided to "refuse to support it any longer"

Context. Get it yet? And why do you ask me instead of Sony themselves? They were the one answering Heise that they don't support the "standard" anymore because it no longer follows "current technical standards". http://www.heise.de/newsticker...

Government should enforce more standards

[NotInHere]

Standards are the basis of a free market, and proprietary "standards" are the basis of proprietary lock-in.

Governments are given the oversight to ensure that there still is a free market.

Examples for proprietary "standards" being used for proprietary lock-in:

-> microsoft office to make interopability with their formats hard

-> whatsapp's messaging protocol. its basically xmpp, but they still only allow the official client to communicate

-> printer cartriges, even used to lie to the customer by lowering the price for the printer.

Re:Government should enforce more standards

[NostalgiaForInfinity]

Standards are the basis of a free market,

They are not:

A free market is a market economy system in which the prices for goods and services are set freely by consent between vendors and consumers, in which the laws and forces of supply and demand are free from any intervention by a government, price-setting monopoly, or other authority.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Government mandated standards may or may not be a good idea, but they are certainly not "the basis of a free market" because they represent an intervention by government in the forces of supply and demand.

and proprietary "standards" are the basis of proprietary lock-in.

Sometimes they are. But proprietary lock-in is compatible with a free market.

Re:Government should enforce more standards

[angel'o'sphere]

Government mandated standards may or may not be a good idea, but they are certainly not "the basis of a free market" because they represent an intervention by government in the forces of supply and demand.
This is nonsense. The parent was right.
The underlying supply, mor important, demand, does not change, just because the suppliers need to meet a certain standard. And by all being forced to adhere to the same standard, a single supplier can not abuse his artificial monopoly.

Re:Government should enforce more standards

[dejitaru]

Sigh... i'm still waiting for the U.S. to move to the metric system :|

Re:Government should enforce more standards

[amiga3D]

Your statement may be true but still standards are not the basis of a free market.

Re:Government should enforce more standards

[sunderland56]

Yes. However, there is no world government; so planetary adoption of standards is still hard.

the success of the standard household 3-prong electrical plug

Haha. Right. All the proposed regulation does is to make *one* end of the charger a standard. Good luck with the other end. There is no "standard household outlet"; countries can't even agree on what the voltage should be, or the AC frequency, never mind the number of, arrangement, size, and shape of prongs.

Re:Government should enforce more standards

[NostalgiaForInfinity]

The underlying supply, mor important, demand, does not change, just because the suppliers need to meet a certain standard.

If the government imposes standards for chargers (or anything else), buyers and sellers are not free to engage in transactions without government interference; that makes the market a regulated market, not a free market. I'm sorry if you don't understand that, but your analysis is, to use your own words, "nonsense".

Furthermore, government standards can very much affect supply and demand. For example, housing standards generally lower supply of housing. Standards also frequently lower demand by making products less attractive or more cumbersome to use.

And by all being forced to adhere to the same standard, a single supplier can not abuse his artificial monopoly.

If you consider a proprietary charger plug an "artificial monopoly", the term "monopoly" has lost all meaning.

Re:Government should enforce more standards

[NotInHere]

I agree, its a true mess.

Re:Government should enforce more standards

[ShanghaiBill]

A free market is a ...

That is ONE definition of a "free market", as a market free of government regulation. Another definition of a "free market" is a competitive market with negligible barriers to entry, and the inability of a single participant (either buyer or seller) to unilaterally set prices. In practice, these two definitions are opposites, since completely unregulated markets tend to be rigged.

Re:Government should enforce more standards

[UpnAtom]

It's a no-brainer if it's done independently and transparently.

I vaguely trust the EU to do this. Not so much the US.

Re:Government should enforce more standards

[RichardDeVries]

I thought we were talking about the free-as-in-beer-market.

Re:Government should enforce more standards

[UpnAtom]

Actually, the primary criterion of a free market is low barrier to entry. This means no lock-ins to proprietary upgrades/maintenance.

Re:Government should enforce more standards

[PopeRatzo]

Your statement may be true but still standards are not the basis of a free market.

They are in a very important way. For example, legal standards are an absolute necessity for what you call a "free market" (which isn't really free, but that's a different discussion). If there were no standard for what happens to people who don't perform on contracts, created by government and enforced by government courts, then there could be no market at all, much less a "free" one.

Also, standards as to what constitutes fraud.

Yeah, standards are essential for markets of any kind. Remember, markets do not exist in nature. And there is no such thing as a "free market". None has every existed, none can possibly exist. Free market is like "free energy".

Re:Government should enforce more standards

[JSG]

In the UK the govt mandated electronic document formats are things like PDF, CSV and ODF. https://www.gov.uk/government/...

I still find it hard to believe, given our, *ahem* questionable approach to standards (we ratified and pushed OOXML forward as an open standard).

Re:Government should enforce more standards

[PopeRatzo]

If the government imposes standards for chargers (or anything else), buyers and sellers are not free to engage in transactions without government interference; that makes the market a regulated market, not a free market.

Can you give us an example of an unregulated "free market"? I mean one that actually exists, or has existed. Who decided that the voltage coming out of the wall socket should be 120v at 60hz? Where does the silly notion that there are a certain number of ounces to the pound come from? Why shouldn't I be able to sell 14oz "pounds" of coffee? And what do you think the word "government" means?

Re:Government should enforce more standards

[drinkypoo]

Haha. Right. All the proposed regulation does is to make *one* end of the charger a standard. Good luck with the other end. There is no "standard household outlet"; countries can't even agree on what the voltage should be, or the AC frequency, never mind the number of, arrangement, size, and shape of prongs.

Seems like you could use SSRs and/or actual relays to just support sticking wires into holes and praying, albeit at some expense...

Re:Government should enforce more standards

[radarskiy]

"a regulated market, not a free market."

Why do you hate Adam Smith?

Re:Government should enforce more standards

[penguinoid]

Standards are the basis of a free market, and proprietary "standards" are the basis of proprietary lock-in.

Government mandated standards may or may not be a good idea, but they are certainly not "the basis of a free market" because they represent an intervention by government in the forces of supply and demand.

He's pretty much right. The "Free Market" has no monopolies (including no patents, no copyrights, and no proprietary standards -- obviously, since all of those are "you can't make/sell this" restrictions) and an infinite number of competing companies producing any particular product, such that the price of an item is based on the supply and demand. Having a single standard means more competition, so it is much closer to the Free Market ideal than multiple proprietary standards.

While governments can sometimes interfere with the price of goods, monopolies are guaranteed to interfere because they can set the supply (and therefore the price) to whatever is most profitable.

Re:Government should enforce more standards

[Darinbob]

Too many have a theology that essentially says "the worst corporation is better then the best government". That is, evil done by a corporation is fine and good because the free market fairies will fix it, but no good can possibly come from a government which exists only to create a military market and provide a means to sue those you disagree with. The problem is that there really is not a free market without government, much like there are no personal freedoms either without a government to defend them, as there's always someone or other who will drag it all down in the absence of all rules.

Re:Government should enforce more standards

[tepples]

Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations condemned monopoly. So a market ought to be regulated to the extent that regulations preserve opportunity for competition. People say they want a free market, but what they probably want is a competitive market.

Re:Government should enforce more standards

[Darinbob]

The first definition has proven time and time again to lead to abuses in the market, abuses against rights of citizens, abuses against its own workers, cheating against its own shareholders even.

Re:Government should enforce more standards

[NostalgiaForInfinity]

Can you give us an example of an unregulated "free market"? I mean one that actually exists, or has existed.

Well, as a simple example, black markets by their very nature are unregulated. New markets generally also start out unregulated and free; many Internet offerings were originally unregulated. There are historical examples as well. But even if there weren't, what do you think that would show?

Who decided that the voltage coming out of the wall socket should be 120v at 60hz?

(It's 110V 60Hz in the US.) The answer to that is complicated and involves technology, lobbying, economics, and patents. By itself, it's only a convention, but it then became mandatory as part of building codes and public safety regulations.

Where does the silly notion that there are a certain number of ounces to the pound come from?

Those aren't mandatory regulations, they are simply measures that people can choose to use or not.

Why shouldn't I be able to sell 14oz "pounds" of coffee?

Yes, why shouldn't you be able to?

And what do you think the word "government" means?

There are many forms of government and many definitions of government, but all government involves some notion of a "society" and the use of force or threat of force of some members of that society against other members of society, ostensibly for "the benefit of society as a whole".

Let me leave you with this quote from Bastiat:

Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all.

Objecting to government-mandated standards is not the same as objecting to standards. Having standard voltages and frequencies, safety standards, and measurement standards is a good thing, but there are many ways and better ways to provide those than through government coercion.

Re:Government should enforce more standards

[amiga3D]

A regulated free market has rules, not standards. Standards exist of course in a free or non-free market. These standards may be reconciled amongst vendors or government imposed but they have nothing to do with maintaining a free market. They're just part of the background. Standards come and go. Generally a free market means very little government management but as you say there will always be some regulation. A totally free market would be anarchy.

Re:Government should enforce more standards

[NostalgiaForInfinity]

The "Free Market" has no monopolies (including no patents, no copyrights, and no proprietary standards -- obviously, since all of those are "you can't make/sell this" restrictions) and an infinite number of competing companies producing any particular product

You're mixing up the definition of a free market with consequences of free markets and common economic assumptions when analyzing free market models.

Having a single standard means more competition, so it is much closer to the Free Market ideal than multiple proprietary standards.

Maximizing competition is not a defining characteristic of a free market. It isn't even usually desirable or efficient.

While governments can sometimes interfere with the price of goods, monopolies are guaranteed to interfere because they can set the supply (and therefore the price) to whatever is most profitable.

Luckily, free markets do not produce stable monopolies.

Re:Government should enforce more standards

[NostalgiaForInfinity]

Why do you hate Adam Smith?

Huh? Adam Smith's definitions pretty much agreed with mine.

Furthermore, Adam Smith generally advocated free markets. He went as far as pointing out that slavery is a result of government regulation, and that free markets would have resulted in its dissolution.

Adam Smith did advocate some limited degree of government regulation. I don't automatically object to all government regulation either. I'm just pointing out that when government regulates a market, that market ceases to be a free market.

Re:Government should enforce more standards

[dejitaru]

What the hell is up your butt? The fact that we are on the U.S. customary measurement while the rest of the world is on the metric system meaning there's still a substantial amount of measure conversion which costs businesses. There's only three countries that haven't fully embraced the metric system; USA, Liberia, and Myanmar. In a globalized economy, why the hell would you not want to embrace a global standard? That just adds more cost, effort, and time, unless you have some shallow sense of pride over having things measured in pounds instead of grams.

Re:Government should enforce more standards

[NostalgiaForInfinity]

Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations condemned monopoly.

Yes, and the monopolies he was talking about were government chartered monopolies.

Smith didn't seem to think that free markets would produce significant, stable monopolies by themselves, therefore he didn't believe that government regulation was necessary to counteract such monopolies.

The notion of "natural monopolies" was invented by Mill, and it's unclear to this day whether they exist at all in the real world.

People say they want a free market, but what they probably want is a competitive market.

Sure, people want more and more companies competing for their business because that lowers prices. However, markets can be "too competitive", with prices too low and too many sellers. In that case, the market needs to become less competitive by competitors leaving the market. That's a good thing, it makes the market more efficient.

Re:Government should enforce more standards

[PopeRatzo]

Well, as a simple example, black markets by their very nature are unregulated.

You would be wrong. As someone who spent a fair amount of time in Belgrade during the troubles there in the '90s, I've seen first hand how black markets work. They use currency (govt) and weights and measures (govt) and almost certainly local police are involved (or they couldn't function). Black markets exist when law breaks down, and I'm pretty sure you wouldn't offer the black market as a model on which to base you preferred economic system.

(It's 110V 60Hz in the US.)

The median voltage in the US is 117 VAC, and it's reported worldwide at 120 VAC.

Let me leave you with this quote from Bastiat:

But it's a quote about something that doesn't have anything to do with the fact that you still can't offer a single instance of a "free market".

Objecting to government-mandated standards is not the same as objecting to standards. Having standard voltages and frequencies, safety standards, and measurement standards is a good thing, but there are many ways and better ways to provide those than through government coercion.

Good, then offer some examples of safety and measurement standards being "provided" (and by this, I assume you mean "enforced") without government.

Re:Government should enforce more standards

[tepples]

Yes, and the monopolies he was talking about were government chartered monopolies.

So is the monopoly conferred by a grant of patent, such as Apple's patent on the Lightning connector. So is the monopoly conferred through an exclusive utility franchise. All of these are government-chartered monopolies.

Re:Government should enforce more standards

[PopeRatzo]

A totally free market would be anarchy.

That's the point.

So what you want is not a "totally free market", but rather, a regulated market. The only discussion left then is a negotiation regarding where to set the level of regulation. In other words, you want an attenuated freedom...a limited freedom. I guess, freedom ain't free.

I suggest we set the "freedom dial" to the setting that has provided people with the highest level of economic security, economic mobility, standard of living and lowest level of poverty. I think you see where this is going. See you in Gothenburg, comrade. Bernie 2016.

Re:Government should enforce more standards

[jmac_the_man]

Apple traded the knowledge of how Lightning works to the people at large in exchange for legal (civil) protections from competitors for a certain period of time. That's how all patents work. Without patents, Apple would just keep the workings of Lightning secret, and then wouldn't be able to license Lightning to potential competitors to use it in new things (speaker docks and the like.) They'd keep it secret forever, as opposed to "known but not commercially usable without a license until the patent expires" like it is now.

The exclusive utility franchise is a monopoly, though.

Re:Government should enforce more standards

[sjames]

(Don't give me the example of people trying to "corner the market" or "get a monopoly by buying up all competitors", that just doesn't work.)

Tell that to DeBeers.

Re:Government should enforce more standards

[NostalgiaForInfinity]

So is the monopoly conferred by a grant of patent, such as Apple's patent on the Lightning connector. So is the monopoly conferred through an exclusive utility franchise. All of these are government-chartered monopolies.

Correct. And the solution to that issue is not that "government should enforce more standards", as the OP suggested, it is that it "should stop granting monopolies".

Re:Government should enforce more standards

[ShanghaiBill]

(Don't give me the example of people trying to "corner the market" or "get a monopoly by buying up all competitors", that just doesn't work.)

What??!? It certainly does work. When I was 12 years old, I was selling pumpkins at a flea market. Then a farmer showed up, with a truckload of pumpkins. The first thing he did was come over and talk to me, and convince me to raise my price to the same as his, and agree to not offer any discounts. He made the (valid) argument that discounting would just lead to a race to the bottom, and minimize our profits. I stuck to the deal, and so did he. I learned a valuable lesson that day about business and proper pricing (I was charging too little before he showed up). Years later, I learned that the price fixing agreement that we made was illegal.

Price fixing may not work in broad commodity markets, like corn or wheat, with many buyers and sellers, but it certainly works in isolated markets with few participants, like three gas stations at a freeway stop, or two pumpkin sellers at a flea market.

Re:Government should enforce more standards

[amiga3D]

The only problem is you have to make sure you don't kill the golden goose. You know, your productivity. Too many parasites and the goose dies then no one has any more eggs. It's a balancing act. I like Bernie a hell of a lot better than the cunt but still I think he's a little too socialistic for me. Sadly the other side is a fucking mess. That's why Trump is leading, at least he's not the same old stinking pile of shit we've had since Reagan. Anything is better (well, anything except the fucking cunt) than another Bush. The corrupt fuckers in the Republican party are starting to figure out they can't shove some asshole down everyone's throat like they did with Romney last time. People are so fed up that they'll vote for Carson or Trump out of spite.

Re:Government should enforce more standards

[NostalgiaForInfinity]

You would be wrong. As someone who spent a fair amount of time in Belgrade during the troubles there in the '90s, I've seen first hand how black markets work. They use currency (govt) and weights and measures (govt) and almost certainly local police are involved (or they couldn't function)

The criterion for a free market is that people conduct business transactions voluntarily and without having terms or conditions imposed on them by others. How does the voluntary use of government currency and the voluntary use of government weights and measures make the market non-free?

As for police involvement, you're engaging in circular reasoning: you assume that police are necessary for markets to function, then infer that police were "almost certainly involved", and then use that to argue that government is necessary for markets to function. In fact, police are not necessary for markets to function; many markets function perfectly well without police, laws, or a legal system to back them up. Reputation and repeat business are sufficient in and of themselves to make sure people live up to their commitments.

But it's a quote about something that doesn't have anything to do with the fact that you still can't offer a single instance of a "free market".

I have offered several instances; if you don't understand them why they are free markets, that's your problem. But you haven't explained why this is even relevant. Can you offer historical instances of societies with gender equality? Historical instances of societies that have eliminated economic inequality? Nationally recognized gay rights and gay marriage? Would the lack of historical precedent convince you that those things are bad ideas?

Good, then offer some examples of safety and measurement standards being "provided" (and by this, I assume you mean "enforced") without government.

That question is rife with several logical fallacies.

In any case, I'll just refer you to the literature, for example http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/p...

Rothbard's "For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto" also has a pretty good explanation of how these things work, and provides ample historical precedent.

Re:Government should enforce more standards

[dryeo]

So basically a free market is where who ever has the most power can just take what they want, Remember, none of that pesky government regulation so things like private property only exist if you can defend them.
I guess the early middle ages was an example of free markets. Powerless government with a rich class fighting amongst themselves to take and defend their property.

Re:Government should enforce more standards

[NostalgiaForInfinity]

What??!? It certainly does work.

It works temporarily and short term; such agreements are not stable.

He made the (valid) argument that discounting would just lead to a race to the bottom, and minimize our profits.

Sorry to tell you this, but he bamboozled you, and you fell for it.

Furthermore, even if your price fixing agreement had been rational on both your parts, you would simply have attracted new sellers to come into the market next time and undercut you both.

Re:Government should enforce more standards

[ArmoredDragon]

I wouldn't bother with GP (PopeRatzo.) I've debated with him on this and other economic issues before, and he seems to create his own definitions for common economic terms based on absolutely nothing, (my guess is sourced from something akin to urban dictionary) and then insists that his definition is the actual definition.

I'd mod you up for accuracy if you had the points, as very few people on Slashdot seem to understand what these terms mean (i.e. frequently confusing the terms socialism and welfare, or citing patent or copyright abuse as examples of the free market at work, when that couldn't be further from the truth.)

Re:Government should enforce more standards

[NostalgiaForInfinity]

DeBeers had an economically useless product (gem diamonds) and created a market for them through advertising. Complaining about the DeBeers monopoly is like complaining about a monopoly in ChiaPets. There was little economic incentive for competitors to enter that market, but eventually, they did anyway, and DeBeers's monopoly was history. (There were a bunch of anti-trust suits as well, but they were pretty much irrelevant.)

Re:Government should enforce more standards

[NostalgiaForInfinity]

So basically a free market is where who ever has the most power can just take what they want

"Taking whatever they want" is not a "voluntary transaction", so, no, that's not a free market.

Remember, none of that pesky government regulation so things like private property only exist if you can defend them.

Defense of private property is something quite different from government regulations of markets, so your comment is missing the point. Nevertheless, government is not necessary in order to defend private property; voluntary, private mechanisms are sufficient.

I guess the early middle ages was an example of free markets. Powerless government with a rich class fighting amongst themselves to take and defend their property.

You got it backwards: the middle ages were characterized by a political ruling class (whose power was rooted in military strength) that enriched themselves through government coercion. Their oppressive rule was ended through increasing wealth from private businesses. Nobility forced to marry wealthy commoners became a common trope in the literature at the end of the Middle Ages and later.

Re:Government should enforce more standards

[angel'o'sphere]

Very well put into words, dear Sir!

Re:Government should enforce more standards

[angel'o'sphere]

buyers and sellers are not free to engage in transactions without government interference;
That is nonsense.
that makes the market a regulated market, not a free market.
No it does not. It only sets a standard. Perhaps you don't grasp what the word or the idea of a standard means.

I'm sorry if you don't understand that, but your analysis is, to use your own words, "nonsense".
I understand very well that you are an idiot.

Free market means: suppliers and customers can freely negotiate about prices, amounts, supply, demand etc., not about standards.

According to your idea, slavery would be a cool concept for a free market, because governments interfering with slavery are evil.

Or selling "poisoned" bread (or beer for that matter) is just ok, as the free market will sort it out and the sellers of such food and beverage will be "run out of business" by lack of buyers or "superior competition".

Sorry ... standards ... laws ... and free markets: have nothing to do with each other (unless you have idiotic laws which counteract actively any of them, like: bread is to be sold for $1 per pound ... but even then you had a free market competing over quality of said bread)

Re:Government should enforce more standards

[AmiMoJo]

We need a mix for different things. Heavy regulation or state ownership can be good for essential services like water and electricity. Competition can be good for spurring innovation. Clearly too little regulation in the financial sector was not a good idea.

Re:Government should enforce more standards

[DarkTempes]

Did you really only refer to Hillary by her sexual organs with a straight face? I'm not a Hillary fan but that's fucked up.
You might as well refer to all of the male candidates as "the pricks."

Honestly, if I wanted the executive to stay the same as it generally has been for the last 20 years then I'd vote for Hillary. She's the logical conservative/business-as-usual choice. That's really not worth deriding her as "the cunt."

And the biggest parasite on the golden goose is probably income and wealth disparity. Using taxes, at least temporarily, to counter that while injecting cash in needed areas like infrastructure makes sense. If you need money to run the government then you have to take it from where money actually is. And that's not not the middle class anymore.

And even a communist president wouldn't mean anything because the executive branch isn't the legislative branch. Sure, executive orders have quite a bit of power but they don't bypass the budget process. Presidents aren't dictators.

Well, they aren't yet. When we end up getting a charismatic enough president who ignores the law in order to grab more power, and there isn't a large enough opposition to counter it, then we'll be in the shit. Germany found that out the hard way.

Re:Government should enforce more standards

[sjames]

DeBeers was also involved in industrial diamonds which are not at all useless. During WWII, they were considered a strategic asset.

There was plenty of motivation to enter the market, big money is always a motivator.

If DeBeers isn't Scottish enough, consider the Phoebus cartel.

Enron had a pretty good go at it until it got caught.

Then again, not all transactions are fully voluntary. For example, in the emergency room, it's questionable how voluntary the transaction is when the alternative is death within minutes.

Re:Government should enforce more standards

[NostalgiaForInfinity]

DeBeers was also involved in industrial diamonds which are not at all useless.

Well, and guess what, within a little more than a decade, industrial diamonds were fabricated on a large scale, breaking any market control DeBeers might have had.

Enron had a pretty good go at it until it got caught.

They "got caught" committing fraud and self-destructed as a result. What does that have to do with stable monopolies?

If DeBeers isn't Scottish enough, consider the Phoebus cartel

Yes, and that cartel lasted less than a decade.

I didn't claim that monopolies or cartels never exist at all, I said that they aren't stable (or, more accurately, they aren't stable if people try to use them to extract monopoly rents). They aren't stable because they inherently create a strong incentive for competitors to enter the market. Each of your examples actually illustrates that fact.

Then again, not all transactions are fully voluntary. For example, in the emergency room, it's questionable how voluntary the transaction is when the alternative is death within minutes.

Your fallacy is ambiguity. The transaction may not be "voluntary" in some sense, but it's a free market transaction: no third party is coercing the patient to seek treatment. It would still be a "free market transaction" even if the patient were unconscious, since it would be governed by whatever legal instructions the patient put in place before losing consciousness (provided those instructions weren't coerced).

Re:Government should enforce more standards

[dejitaru]

What the hell are metric fascists? Plus i'm looking at macroeconomics sir.

Re:Government should enforce more standards

[bruce_the_loon]

Early internet offerings were far from unregulated, even if they thought they were. All business regulations for brick-and-mortar businesses in their operational base location still applied and would be enforced if needed. More generalized regulations did show up later to reduce the confusion about which regulations (seller area, buyer area etc) applied. Not that it helped sort the confusion out though.

Re:Government should enforce more standards

[sjames]

No, you claimed that a market can't be rigged if the transactions are voluntary. I showed three examples off the top of my head of rigged markets where the transactions were voluntary. You further claimed that cornering the market doesn't work. I would say the fantastic profits of DeBeers show that it DOES work. Nothing lasts forever, but it doesn't have to in order to be immensely profitable to a few and damaging to many.

If you're going to move the goalposts all over the place, I'm not going to bother playing.

That includes re-defining voluntary to include coerced by circumstance.

Re:Government should enforce more standards

[Bert64]

proprietary lock-in is an attempt to subvert the free market, and in an idealised free market (ie one in which the consumers are sufficiently informed to make sensible buying decisions) would not work.

No company likes a free market, and will do everything they can to ensure the market ceases to be free.
Consider a state of anarchy, without a government at all you technically have ultimate freedom but it never lasts long because others will try to use their freedom to take away yours.

Re:Government should enforce more standards

[Bert64]

They aren't mandated, they are suggested and virtually no government department actually uses them...

Re:Government should enforce more standards

[johanw]

If patenting such a proprietary charger would not be possible so anyone could make them you would be right. Patents are artificial monopolies.

Re:Government should enforce more standards

[Half-pint HAL]

Standards are the basis of a free market,

Government mandated standards may or may not be a good idea, but they are certainly not "the basis of a free market" because they represent an intervention by government in the forces of supply and demand.

This is where free market economics becomes self-defeating, because we have the difference between "a" free market and "the" free market, and free market economics supoorts the latter at the cost of the former. "The" free market is a monolithic concept which allows bigger players to close markets for specific goods and/or services.

The problem then is that because "the" free market can restrict individual market places, free market economics do not apply in "the" free market. Paradoxical, but true.

Re:Government should enforce more standards

[Cinnamon Beige]

We need a mix for different things. Heavy regulation or state ownership can be good for essential services like water and electricity. Competition can be good for spurring innovation. Clearly too little regulation in the financial sector was not a good idea.

Given just how much the efforts to regulate the financial sector features on the Wikipedia page for regulatory capture, I'd say that the issue is less the amount of regulation and more one of failure to ensure proper lack on incest between the regulators and those they regulate.

Here, offhand, I'd say that either an industry or government regulatory agency would do the job--a joint venture might work best, since you want to have the ability to phase in and out standards...at least, until it becomes standard practice to have wireless charging. (There, I think long-term we'd want to maintain a high degree of backwards compatibility, especially if somebody gets around to offering charging kiosks.)

Re:Government should enforce more standards

[Half-pint HAL]

Objecting to government-mandated standards is not the same as objecting to standards. Having standard voltages and frequencies, safety standards, and measurement standards is a good thing, but there are many ways and better ways to provide those than through government coercion.

Rebuttal: ammonium cleaning of inedible meat to create "pink slurry" which is sold for human consumption. Most civilised countries banned this decades ago. The US light-touch regulators didn't. It took massive campaigning by celebrities to eventually get this practice stopped "voluntarily" by major food manufacturers.

Now if we bring is back to the mobile phone market, one of Apple's justifications for lock-in and certification is safety -- cheap chargers tend to catch fire... in places with little or no regulation. If you have no governmment-mandated safety laws, then your next-door-neighbour can buy a $/€/¥/£1 PoS that catches light after half-an-hour of use. Such things are far rarer in the EU, because... regulation!

In fact, Apple's policy actually caused more fires in the EU than it prevented, because anyone looking for a cheap adaptor was forced to import far-eastern knock-offs directly, bypassing the EU market entirely, thus missing the benefit of the protections of market regulation.

(Side note: in order to comply with EU regulations on charger compatibilty, Apple patched their firmware and/or software for EU users to allow any charger, but when connected to a Windows/Linux PC it only trickle charges. It turns out that e way to get round this is to use a charging-only cable -- iOS switches to default mode and will draw as much power as it can.)

Re:Government should enforce more standards

[Cinnamon Beige]

"He went as far as pointing out that slavery is a result of government regulation, and that free markets would have resulted in its dissolution."

Dear god, I guess I have to read the damn book now. This seems hilariously funny to me. I just don't see how government regulating or not regulating markets has anything to do with slavery. In free market the merchandise can speak up their mind about being sold? :-D

Governments can and have done it--there's been a few points where the costs of slave vs free labor have been such that you're better off not owning your workers, and is one of the factors in the demise of serfdom. (It's also propped up slavery, sometimes through the law of unintended consequences: there's only a few ways for things to go if you ensure that you can't sell a crop or product for enough that it's cost-effective to use free labor.)

Re:Government should enforce more standards

[jonbryce]

Those aren't mandatory regulations, they are simply measures that people can choose to use or not.

Most countries have weights and measures regulations.

In the EU, you have to quote the mass in g or kg. This means that you can compare quantities sold by different suppliers and everyone knows what they are getting.

Look for example at the mess we had in Europe before the EU mandated that the brightness of lightbulbs had to be quoted in Lumens. Everyone was using their own made-up measurements in "watt equivalents" - you could use their 10 lumen bulb in place of a now-banned 60W traditional bulb, if you didn't mind the fact that you wouldn't be able to actually see anything because it was so dark.

Re:Government should enforce more standards

[Half-pint HAL]

Did you really only refer to Hillary by her sexual organs with a straight face? I'm not a Hillary fan but that's fucked up.

I personally assumed he was referring to Donald Trump....

Re:Government should enforce more standards

[Half-pint HAL]

Sorry to tell you this, but he bamboozled you, and you fell for it.

That's free marketism to the extreme. Many small businesses fail because they underestimate their costs when pricing their products. Advice about sensible pricing should always be welcome. The GP, like many small vendors, probably felt a pressure of guilt against charging decent prices -- the farmer alleviated that guilt by showing him how his pricing was fair.

In this case the GP was doing it as a hobby, and the point of the hobby was not to sell pumpkins, but to get some experience of what buying and selling is all about -- the farmer's advice was therefore essentially the most important aspect of the endeavour.

Talking about hobbies, one of the problems in (literal) markets is that professionals often end up competing with hobbyists. If we're talking about crafts (eg crocheting beanie hats), most hobbyists set their prices based on material cost (yarn in the crocheted hat example) -- they see their time as zero-cost because they're engaged in their hobby anyway. But that undermines those who want to be pros because crafts are cheap in terms of material, but expensive in terms of time. Many hobbyists are open to increasing their prices out of sympathy to people who are trying to make a living doing something they truly love, and even those who aren't can often be convinced by explaining that they could do the same thing as long as they don't undermine the market in the meantime by setting people's expectations low.

Re:Government should enforce more standards

[Half-pint HAL]

You got it backwards: the middle ages were characterized by a political ruling class (whose power was rooted in military strength) that enriched themselves through government coercion.

Except that in feudal societies, the "government" was set up by a powerful family who had taken what they wanted by force of arms and controlled the supply of land. They established local monopoly where the cost of finding a supplier elsewhere was high (ie. emigration). Crucially, though, immigration was rarely controlled, and anyone was theoretically free to move where they wanted and declare themselves as subjects of a new lord.

To me, that sounds like a market system.

Their oppressive rule was ended through increasing wealth from private businesses. Nobility forced to marry wealthy commoners became a common trope in the literature at the end of the Middle Ages and later.

Except that nobility marrying commoners was still about monopolies and monopsonies -- if a rich commoner wanted to get full access to society, he had to marry a noble, hence it was a lucrative business for the nobility: supply and demand. What ended oppressive rule was armed uprising. Countries which didn't have an armed bourgeois-democrat revolution only reformed out of enlightened self-interest -- no revolution meant no guillotine. Even then, the elites of those countries without revolution made sure to keep as much power as they could -- hence the continuance of hereditary peers to sit in the second chamber of the UK parliament for example.

Re:Government should enforce more standards

[Half-pint HAL]

The "Free Market" has no monopolies (including no patents, no copyrights, and no proprietary standards -- obviously, since all of those are "you can't make/sell this" restrictions) and an infinite number of competing companies producing any particular product

You're mixing up the definition of a free market with consequences of free markets and common economic assumptions when analyzing free market models.

But you have to do that, otherwise you come to the paradox that the free market uses market forces to create closed markets where market forces don't apply. If you can't apply free market economics to the free market, how can it be a free market?

While governments can sometimes interfere with the price of goods, monopolies are guaranteed to interfere because they can set the supply (and therefore the price) to whatever is most profitable.

Luckily, free markets do not produce stable monopolies.

A: assuming this is true, in the case of proprietary chargers that makes free markets wasteful by definition -- closed standards dictated by unstable monopolies become obsolete and up as pollution on a garbage pile.

B: I'm typing this on a Windows machine. Aren't you...?

Re:Government should enforce more standards

[macs4all]

I suggest we set the "freedom dial" to the setting that has provided people with the highest level of economic security, economic mobility, standard of living and lowest level of poverty. I think you see where this is going. See you in Gothenburg, comrade. Bernie 2016.

So, your idea of "free" is that Apple's Lightning connector should be OUTLAWED, even though the people who enjoy the many demonstrable benefits of same, and their power to choose same, are overridden by those who only want to have one AC adapter.

So, while we're at it, howabout mandating that all electronics MUST run on 5V, with microUSB for EVERYTHING? Afterall, it, and only it, is the One True Charging Standard. Everything from your Electric Car to your Television would HAVE to use a 5V microUSB AC Adapter, and draw no more than 2A.

Re:Government should enforce more standards

[PopeRatzo]

So, your idea of "free" is that Apple's Lightning connector should be OUTLAWED

What are you on about?

And yes, when Comrade Sanders is made premiere, Apple will have to be shut down and all Apple products confiscated in the name of the greater good.

Re:Government should enforce more standards

[Half-pint HAL]

And you're welcome to use metric units for your 4x8 sheets of plywood or 2x4 lumber as long as you don't insist on actually changing the actual wood to an integer number of centimeters.

In Europe, the base sizes for most lumber is still derived from the historical imperial forms. But you do realise your 2x4 isn't actually 2" by 4" in cross section, don't you? 2x4 is the sawn cross-section size, not the dressed size -- it's significantly smaller after dressing. In the UK, your metric measure is typically the dimensions after the wood has been dressed, so it's a more accurate measure anyhow.

By the way, the physicists would like to know if you're ok with them using electron volts and light years or whether your hard line attitude requires discontinuing the use of those non-SI units as we'll.

If you're complaining about lightyears, then you're complaining about ever measure of time other than the second.

Re:Government should enforce more standards

[Blaskowicz]

Honestly, if I wanted the executive to stay the same as it generally has been for the last 20 years then I'd vote for Hillary. She's the logical conservative/business-as-usual choice. That's really not worth deriding her as "the cunt."

Even if she is deemeed to deserve being insulted, that isn't helpful. We might as well call everyone "Cunt", "Hitler" or "Stalin" and stop having any debate whatsoever.

From your description I would call her another Bush, though.

Re:Government should enforce more standards

[Half-pint HAL]

What the hell are metric fascists?

They're followers of Benito Mussolini who are slightly over 3' 3" tall....

Re:Government should enforce more standards

[Half-pint HAL]

Without the threat of imprisonment by your government, proprietary (ie patented, trademarked, copyrighted) systems would be reverse engineered and duplicated as soon as the market demands it.

That assumes such a task is feasible. Reverse engineering of Microsoft Office document formats was legal and much demanded, but the complexity of the formats and the undocumented interactions meant that even after the "opening" of the format by MS Office, no alternative office suite can guarantee full compatibility with MS Office. See also PDF.

Re:Government should enforce more standards

[brianerst]

If a government does not protect the institution of slavery, including the market for slaves themselves, slaves can revolt more easily - it was the government's monopoly of violence in the antebellum South that allowed slavery to even exist, considering that the number of slaves generally vastly outnumbered the number of slave owners.

Even the existence of a anti-slave portion of the country (the North) caused enormous problems. Slaves could simply run away and if they could make it to the North without being recaptured by agents of the Southern pro-slavery government, they could live free. It was such a problem that they introduced the Fugitive Slave Act precisely to "fix" the problem of free movement of people (which is related to free markets). Once again, a government stepped in to enforce slavery - had the government not been involved, slavery would have died out long before then.

Slavery is the ultimate government regulation.

Re:Government should enforce more standards

[brianerst]

I don't know who those "too many" are, but libertarians are usually tarred by that brush and would disagree completely. Libertarians are generally anti-Big Government and anti-Big Business. Look up regulatory capture and rent seeking - terms that mostly originate from libertarian critiques of modern markets.

Re:Government should enforce more standards

[DarkTempes]

It's pretty clear that when he's referring to "the cunt" that he means a Democrat because he follows it with "the other side is a mess" before he begins talking about Republicans.
And when talking about Trump he always uses Trump's name.

He'd like Bernie but Bernie is a socialist.
He doesn't like the Republican party.
He'd like Bernie/Trump/Carson/etc over Bush.
He'd like Bush over "the cunt."

I think he pretty much dislikes everyone but he really hates women.

Guys, we just found Donald Trump's Slashdot account.

Re:Government should enforce more standards

[PopeRatzo]

We might as well call everyone "Cunt"

But then you'd be Scottish.

Re:Government should enforce more standards

[NostalgiaForInfinity]

No, you claimed that a market can't be rigged if the transactions are voluntary. I showed three examples off the top of my head of rigged markets where the transactions were voluntary.

You showed three examples in which companies tried to rig the market and they failed. It should obvious that market mechanisms take some time to bring about such failures.

Nothing lasts forever, but it doesn't have to in order to be immensely profitable to a few and damaging to many.

Really? After the end of DeBeers' monopoly, diamond prices became less stable and went up, not down. And, of course, without DeBeers there wouldn't be much of a gem diamond market in the first place. So, who exactly has been "damaged" by DeBeers's temporary monopoly?

That includes re-defining voluntary to include coerced by circumstance.

Well, yes, that's what you did, contradicting the clear definition of "free market" that we started with. That is, I used the term "voluntary" in the context of free market transactions and the definition of free market, and you took it out of context and tried to re-defined it to "include coerced by circumstance". And this entire subthread is your response to a paranthetical remark, not a response to a carefully stated argument.

I'm not going to bother playing.

Good!

Re:Government should enforce more standards

[UpnAtom]

If that were the case, it would be called a "low barrier to entry market".

You mean like how football is called "pass and run ball"?

But it is called a "free market" because its participants are "free" to engage in economic transactions as they choose. You don't get to redefine that.

I get to think through the logical conclusions of the primary criterion and laugh at those who don't. You cannot have a free market if there is a high barrier to entry.

Re:Government should enforce more standards

[amiga3D]

My problem with Hillary isn't her politics but her corruptness. She's dirty. So much dirt I find it amazing she's the Democratic front runner. Generally most Democratic politicians seem more honest to me. Nutty as hell but honest. Like Bernie for instance. Hillary is filthier than the filthiest of the Republicans. I'm amazed.

Re:Government should enforce more standards

[amiga3D]

I love women. I refer to her as the "cunt" as I feel that fits her best. It's the filthiest name I can think of for the filthiest politician in the race.......for either side. Bitch isn't really an insult, I like bitchy women.

Re:Government should enforce more standards

[amiga3D]

You sir are entitled to your opinion. I am of course entitled to disregard it. I feel that cunt best describes her so that's the word I used. I'm sick of filthy corrupt politicians and I feel no need to be kind or respectful to them. I never refer to the President, Mr. Obama, as anything other than his name. This is because despite the fact that I strongly disagree with 80 percent of what he does I feel he is basically sincere and honest. Honestly wrong but still basically a decent person. For the corrupt I reserve vile and nasty slurs. Hillary is the definition of corrupt.

Re:Government should enforce more standards

[amiga3D]

I'm pretty sure President Obama is whiter than Bill Clinton. Outside coloring can be misleading.

Re: Government should enforce more standards

[amiga3D]

It keeps getting modded back up. What's chickenshit about it. I said what I meant and meant what I said. Yeah, I said it. Fuck you too.

Re:Government should enforce more standards

[Plumpaquatsch]

He's pretty much right. The "Free Market" has no monopolies (including no patents, no copyrights, and no proprietary standards

Not according to the inventor of the "Free Market". https://books.google.de/books?...

Re:Government should enforce more standards

[Half-pint HAL]

"The" free market is a monolithic concept which allows bigger players to close markets for specific goods and/or services.

Indeed, that's what bigger players do... through lobbying, rent seeking, and regulatory capture.

The problem then is that because "the" free market can restrict individual market places, free market economics do not apply in "the" free market. Paradoxical, but true.

No, what is "paradoxical" is that you want to fix what is a dysfunction of government, namely big market players distorting the market, by giving even more power to government.

So when Microsoft were at their old game of "embrace and extend [and extinguish]" in an unregulated computing market, that was a dysfunction of government, was it? And when the DoJ and the EU started hitting them with antitrust cases, that was the invisible hand of the market, was it? Of course, I'm not denying that all too often governments get too cosy with big businesses, but that's a dysfunction of individual governments, not with the whole concept of government.

Re:Government should enforce more standards

[Half-pint HAL]

That's even more amazing, since the US has some of the strictest consumer protection and environmental protection in the world.

Surely you can point to studies showing that!

In any case, which part of "Objecting to government-mandated standards is not the same as objecting to standards." did you not understand?

None. But I disagree with you, because when industries create voluntary standards, companies have a tendency to push the boundaries as there is no comeback on them if they fail to meet the standard.

Re:Government should enforce more standards

[Half-pint HAL]

That's free marketism to the extreme.

Really? Telling people that price fixing agreements are likely not to be optimal for one or the other party is "free marketism to the extreme"???

The guy in question was happy with the advice. As a child, he found it a very valuable lesson, and more money. But you refuse to accept his view of the experience as positive because "interfering with markets". That's extremist free marketism, stating that the invisible hand is more important than anything, even the education of a child.

Talking about hobbies, one of the problems in (literal) markets is that professionals often end up competing with hobbyists. [...] most hobbyists set their prices based on material cost (yarn in the crocheted hat example) -- they see their time as zero-cost because they're engaged in their hobby anyway. But that undermines those who want to be pros

And the problem with that would be... what?

The inability of anyone to make a bloody living.

Re:Government should enforce more standards

[david_thornley]

It's a bad idea from almost any perspective. Insulting a person reflects on both of you. In this case, Clinton isn't going to be bothered by your insult, while you look like a prejudiced misogynist. Your "I love women." is as convincing as "Some of my best friends are black, but....", meaning that if anything you're having other people think more positively of her.

And is she the filthiest politician? The Clintons have been lied about for quite a few years. The reason scandal doesn't seem to stick is that people have been throwing fake and trumped-up scandals at them for a long time now. When you've listened to people ranting about Benghazi, in which I can't find anything Clinton did wrong, you tend to discount bad things said of her.

Re:Government should enforce more standards

[david_thornley]

Free markets need informed customers. Remove the government, and you won't be able to trust anyone. You'll have little information on who lives up to their contracts, or what people are selling. Reputation only works so far. It doesn't scale.

Black markets generally aren't free in a real sense. They have various restrictions. Either there's a good enforcement system or new people can't enter the market or they function on limited types of goods. They usually use government currency. New markets are typically regulated by assorted laws. The products and services ISPs offered were not regulated, but they did rely on contract law and potential fraud prosecutions.

What the government usually does is establish a framework to make people accountable for deceit and commitments, and that makes the market freer. The government regulates units of measure, which helps people know what they're buying, making the market freer. Other standards do not have to be government-set, but the government can ensure that a product advertised as conforming to standard X does indeed conform. Without some form of enforcement, standards are useless.

Re:Government should enforce more standards

[david_thornley]

There is a PDF standard. I've read most of it. There are still reasons why it's not completely interoperable. First, I don't know of any reader beside Adobe's that implements all of the standard, and I did some looking. Most don't support manipulation of 3D images. Also, the standard allows many different ways to do things, and a reader may not do the exact right thing with all of them.

Re:Government should enforce more standards

[amiga3D]

If you think she did no wrong in Benghazi then you are blind. The best that can be said there is that maybe she's just stupid but I don't believe that. Just like the e-mail thing. Something that would get any other person in deep shit but it just slid off of her. She's above the law and she knows it. It took her months to even admit she wasn't supposed to have a private server for work e-mail. Months just to deign to admit that she might have done something ever so slightly improper. I can just imagine how arrogant she'll be when she finally gathers the reigns of power that belong to her. She's a cunt. If you don't like it, hate me for it. I'm not taking it back because I believe it to be true. Sure she doesn't care, hell I'm sure below her notice. I'm nothing to people like her. I actually have to work for a living. You know she despises little peons like me that have to obey laws.

Re:Government should enforce more standards

[david_thornley]

What did she do wrong in Benghazi? Last I pushed someone hard on that issue, it would up as a claim that Clinton should have micromanaged the situation better while being an ocean away.

There was nothing wrong with having a private email server when she did it.

I don't hate you, I just think you're a "useful idiot" of the right wing.

Re:Government should enforce more standards

[angel'o'sphere]

Slashdot has some of the most bone-headed participants on the internet.
Indeed, and you are one of the best examples for it. You must suffer really badly that you can only chose from two kinds of fuels for your car, unless you have an electric car, then you have only one fuel (*facepalm*) to chose from.

Re:Government should enforce more standards

[angel'o'sphere]

but still standards are not the basis of a free market.
A contrair.
Either you use money, or a standard measurement for volume or weight, or you exchange goods based on comparing their value versus "money". There are plenty of standards involved.
Most goods can not be traded without following standards, except if you trade privately and agree to ignore them: look what I have in my bag, show me what is in your bag. Ah, lets trade half of my bag for 2/3rds of your bag?

The topic was a plug or a cable with two plugs. Everything in the cable is based on a standard: voltage, amperes, length, diameter, insulation, except: the plug that goes into the phone? Why making an exception there?

Re:Government should enforce more standards

[dave420]

He's just lashing out as his tenuous grip on his surroundings appears to weaken, and fear sets in. Fear of whatever's different - used-to-be-subservient women speaking up? Horrendous! Black people speaking openly of systematic abuse at the hands of the government? Heresy! It's all an attack on white guys! Won't someone please think of the (white middle-aged) children!?

As we saw with racism - the really die-hard types will dwindle in numbers as they die off, and society can get some breathing room to improve.

Douglas Adams had an opinion:

[Alien7]

http://www.douglasadams.com/dna/980707-03-a.html

Re:Douglas Adams had an opinion:

[ffkom]

That article is pretty old and pretty outdated. As he already mentions in his post-script, the EU issued an "has to be chargeable via USB" regulation, and most airlines operating in the EU have USB power outlets in the front seat even in coach on long-haul flights.

Re:Douglas Adams had an opinion:

[amiga3D]

Thank you for that. I loved it.

Re:Douglas Adams had an opinion:

[Anonymous Coward]

Cut the man some slack, he's been dead almost 14 years, and as far as anyone can tell, not for tax purposes.

Re:Douglas Adams had an opinion:

[CCarrot]

I travel a lot too and my power requirements are met with a single, small, plastic box containing a step up/down transformer and an assortment of plug adapters to handle the physical configuration of any power connector standard in the world.

This reminds me of one of my pet peeves: so-called travel surge protectors that are only good for 120V.

Should say: "travel in North America" surge protectors...

Re:Douglas Adams had an opinion:

[tepples]

Should say: "travel in North America" surge protectors...

North America or Japan, I guess, as a lot of appliances intended for North American 115 V have little or no trouble adapting to Japanese 100 V. The Republic of Korea, on the other hand, uses 230 V euro-power.

Re:Douglas Adams had an opinion:

[Half-pint HAL]

Oh and Macs never had plug and play capability, they just had/have a very limited set of hardware.

Only in the sense that "plug and play" is a specific Microsoft technology that never did what it said on the tin anyway.

OSX (and iOS, if you have the camera kit) supports open standards such as USB Audio Class 2, which allows the Mac to use external sound devices without custom drivers, whereas even on Windows 10, you still need to install drivers for the individual device. The problem is that while OSX's audio driver talks to any class 2 device, Windows drivers are all made by individual vendors for their own kit, which means if you use multiple USB audio 2 devices, you might end up with a driver clash, and need to keep uninstalling and reinstalling when you switch device.

So who's plug and play now?

(For the record, I do not own a Mac, and I never have done.)

Re:Douglas Adams had an opinion:

[Blaskowicz]

To be more precise, you're talking of USB Type C rather than 3.1, and it is perfectly supported to have only USB 2.0 on USB Type C. I suppose you can get 3 amps on USB 2.0 Type C - as well as 1.5 amp, although it isn't entirely clear to me.

Re:Douglas Adams had an opinion:

[Half-pint HAL]

I don't use Spyware 10, but in Windows 7 and Windows 8 I can plug my external Sound Blaster in via USB and it just works without needing to install drivers. So you were saying?

Just because you don't need to intervene doesn't mean you don't have to install any drivers -- Windows comes with an unfeasible number of driver packages in it and it installs the drivers for you when you need them. The end result of that is bloat and cruft, and the problem of drivers you no longer actively use interacting with others that you actually need.

Microsoft doesn't have a problem with this situation, because everyone will write Windows drivers. For Mac and Linux users, the need for custom drivers is a major problem, because it's a high cost for a small number of users. That's presumably why Microsoft having been holding off on implementing USB audio class 2 support and everyone else has gone for it with aplomb.

Govt mandated?

[Noah Haders]

Industry standards are great Govt mandated standards always make things worse and serve to enrich a minority of players. While penalizing innovators. Why should Switzerland care if one company wants to do its own thing, and some Swiss citizens choose to buy it? govt overreach, I prefer to live in US.

Re:Govt mandated?

[NotInHere]

The digital industry is filled with almost monopolies. Microsoft is almost monopolist for the desktop (and its office suite is almost monopolist was well), intel is almost monopolist for the desktop CPU market. Google is almost monopolist for internet search. If these companies now use their monopoly to promote only a part of the market they control, its an abuse of their monopoly.

Its hard if a company wants to improve a product, yes. But here the thought of a free market is more important than wanting to improve cabled charger technology.

Imagine if you bought a house with apple IOT, and apple sells thousands of these houses, and after they sold them, they declare that only devices will work with the house's power grid that are certified by apple. This will be their next money printing machine. Modifying the house would be forbidden because of the strong IP laws, and patents apple has on the house. Your only option would be to tear down. Would you want this? And what is if only such houses are on the market, if nobody can build a normal house anymore, without vendor lock in?

Re:Govt mandated?

[Fire_Wraith]

Standards, whether they come from the government or from an industry group, are going to serve the interests of that group. It's whose interests those are that are key, because you can have industry standards designed to enrich a minority of players through proprietary formats - for instance, Blu-ray. Or look at the whole Net Neutrality debate - would you really want an "industry consortium" of internet service providers (Comcast, Verizon, Time Warner, etc) setting the rules for that, or would you prefer the FCC do it?

Contrary to popular belief in America, Government is not inherently bad, so long as it's actually serving the interests of the people, rather than rich/corporate/etc interests. Ironically, the same people who have been trying to convince Americans that "Government is bad" often tend to be the same people sucking up to those rich/corporate/etc interests. Government certainly can be subverted, but that's partly on us as citizens, to not let it happen, and more importantly to fight for a system where it's not easy to have that sort of regulatory capture occur.

Re:Govt mandated?

[angel'o'sphere]

Govt overreach?
Yes, lucky you live in the states so idiots like you can not vote here.
That is exactly what a government is for.

Perhaps you missed the news: Swizerland is not the first country demanding universal chargers.

There are people that don't want to carry half a dozen different chargers around just because they have so many devices.
If the companies are to dumb to realize that then the government has to force them. That is for what I pay taxes.

Govt mandated standards always make things worse and serve to enrich a minority of players. That does not sound plausible. Any example for that?

Re:Govt mandated?

[trout007]

You bash the free market and throw in IP laws which are government monopolies.

Re: Govt mandated?

[Noah Haders]

> Contrary to popular belief in America, Government is not inherently bad, so long as it's actually serving the interests of the people

Lool naive. Govt serves the interests of govt.

Re: Govt mandated?

[amRadioHed]

How could Apple's proprietary charger be the de facto standard when most devices sold don't use it?

Re: Govt mandated?

[Noah Haders]

Several standards can coexist...

Re: Govt mandated?

[Vapula]

They sold a billion units... with 2 or 3 different connectors...

in comparison to several billion product sold by all other PLUS pther devices which also decided to standardize on micro-USB (like HP Prime calculator, some bank card reader for e-banking, raspberry pi and other (Bannana pi, Beagle Bone, ...) and so on...

Apple is the outsider, not a standard...

Re: Govt mandated?

[Noah Haders]

Who cares? So what if a couple apple-yards want to throw themselves into a pit of incompatibility? Why is this something that needs govt intervention?

Re: Govt mandated?

[Feral Nerd]

How could Apple's proprietary charger be the de facto standard when most devices sold don't use it?

Apple chargers have a USB-A socket on them that allows one to use them to charge practically any device. When I go on holiday I simply chuck a couple of iPad chargers into my bag and use them to charge my iPhone, iPad, Garmin Nav-aid, my Bluetooth headphones and a occasionally the Samsung phones of a couple of other family members. I don't really understand why Apple has to be the looser in this. If the Swiss universal charger will have a USB-C socket on it you could plug any cable into it you want including one with an Apple Lightning connector on the other end or another one with a Micro USB connector for your Android devices. The only thing I'd be worried about is some idiot legislating the use of a standard phone/tablet/laptop charger designed by a committee and therefore big as a brick. One of the things that originally caused me to buy Apple laptops was their relatively small and easy to stow laptop chargers.

Re: Govt mandated?

[tepples]

It's to correct for another government intervention, namely that of granting a patent to Apple for the Lightning cable.

Re: Govt mandated?

[angel'o'sphere]

I a vibrant market, consumers can choose whichever phone suits their preferences, including charger designation. No need for govt interference.
Actually: they can't.
A no brainer.
The phone they chose comes with the charger the company building it provided for it.

If you believe otherwise, please organize me an iPhone 4 with an Micro USB adapter on the iPhone site.

Thank you, you have my gratitude.

I would even pay you $1000 for that phone and an additional $100 for the hours you spend to seek it.

It's worthwhile to note that Apple has sold nearly a billion units, so their 'propeietary' chargers are a de facto standard. Apple chargers are sold by dozens ov vendors at prices as low as a couple bucks.
Actually it is not worthwhile to note that.
First of all: they don't sell for a couple of bucks.
Secondly: they don't fit into my Nook nor my Kobo or my "ersatz" phone an Samsung $20 flip phone nor any other device. So? What was your point? Except that you miss the point of this discussion?

Looked at a 110V power connector cable lately? Or an ethernet cable? Or an phono cable connecting your stereo to a box? How many competing "standards" are there? Not so many I would guess ...

Now to your car: how many competing standards of "gasoline" do you have? Are you bound to go to a certain brand of gas station because the hose of other gas stations does not fit into your car? Well, if that is so and you find that ok, you have my pity.

Re: Govt mandated?

[angel'o'sphere]

Why is this something that needs govt intervention?
First: because the companies/industries involved are unable to sort it out themselves.
Secondly: to preserve the environment, save energy, reduce waste, increase standard of living.
The reduced weight in flights alone (not considering the manufacturing costs for the cables and devices) would save thousands of tons in fuel per year.

Re: Govt mandated?

[Noah Haders]

You really think that Apple is going to change their product line for you or some country? Most likely they'll just include one of these in the box, resulting in even more waste. Apple is more powerful than any country and will do what it wants. Worst case the Swiss will have to buy crappy androids!

Re: Govt mandated?

[Registered Coward v2]

It's to correct for another government intervention, namely that of granting a patent to Apple for the Lightning cable.

Except it has no practical impact on Apple's use of the Lightning connector, and the EU has already said Apple's solution com-lies with the standard.

Re: Govt mandated?

[tepples]

I fully agree. At this stage, producers ought to be allowed to use proprietary means to comply with the standard so long as 1. there is a standard and 2. they do comply.

Re: Govt mandated?

[Half-pint HAL]

Apple chargers have a USB-A socket on them that allows one to use them to charge practically any device. When I go on holiday I simply chuck a couple of iPad chargers into my bag and use them to charge my iPhone, iPad, Garmin Nav-aid, my Bluetooth headphones and a occasionally the Samsung phones of a couple of other family members. I don't really understand why Apple has to be the looser in this. If the Swiss universal charger will have a USB-C socket on it you could plug any cable into it you want including one with an Apple Lightning connector on the other end or another one with a Micro USB connector for your Android devices. The only thing I'd be worried about is some idiot legislating the use of a standard phone/tablet/laptop charger designed by a committee and therefore big as a brick. One of the things that originally caused me to buy Apple laptops was their relatively small and easy to stow laptop chargers.

That's basically what we've got in Europe. I used to use my iPad charger as my default travel charger, right up until I left it in a hotel. Thankfully the charger for my Garmin works perfectly well due to EU requirements on Apple -- this is now my default travel charger.

Re: Govt mandated?

[Half-pint HAL]

You really think that Apple is going to change their product line for you or some country? Most likely they'll just include one of these in the box, resulting in even more waste. Apple is more powerful than any country and will do what it wants. Worst case the Swiss will have to buy crappy androids!

Except that multiple countries are demanding increased compatibility.Complying with the EU rules meant a software update to unlock the charging port, and the same will probably be the case in Switzerland. Apple and Nokia couldn't afford to lose Europe, so they pushed for the "adaptor in the box" compromise (Apple already had an adaptor in the box anyway). Most vendors are happy with the standardisation, because it means they can phase out including power supplies in the box with each new phone (a cost saving). Apple is the only company with a lot to lose, as they aim to generate funds from after-market accessories. Standardisation still needs to push forward -- iOS audio add-ons, for example, have no real reason to exist now that USB audio class 2 has been accepted as a standard by pretty much everybody except the Windows development team. If the iPad accepted USB straight off, there would be no call for iOS specific audio devices at all. As it is, Apple hides iOS USB audio capabilities by hiding it behind the misnomer "USB camera kit" in order to get people to purchase iOS specific devices with Apple certified insides, Apple can achieve lock-in amongst users without having to offer any real benefits to the user as a quid pro quo. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if most current iOS audio devices weren't just USB audio 2 devices with an Apple-approved USB-to-Lightning adaptor on board....

Re: Govt mandated?

[AK Marc]

Certainly in the US, but that's not universal.

Re: Govt mandated?

[AK Marc]

Apple chargers require lighting so that if you forget your Apple Proprietary charger adaptor, you can't borrow one from the most adopted standard on the planet. This causes waste. People buying charges for a week's use on a holiday because they can't borow the proprietary charger, or waste where charging stations hold 20 standards for all the charger types.

Require all chargers use a USB-C connector, and be compatible with that standard for charging, even if they implement proprietary interconnect and charging as well over the same socket, and you'll cut costs for consumers, and reduce waste. The only thing hurt will be the proprietary-cable using companies, like Samsung and Apple. And yes, Samsung has plenty of Samsung-only connectors. Seems they didn't want to support HDMI in the micro-USB form factor, so they have a different connector in some devices (at least they do for my Tab, and others I've seen).

The only thing I'd be worried about is some idiot legislating the use of a standard phone/tablet/laptop charger designed by a committee and therefore big as a brick.

I've never seen anyone who was addressing the "charger" in these regulations. Just the connections between the charger and the device. I use Samsung chargers with Apple devices and vice versa. I just need 4 sets of cables/adapters for 4 devices (2 Apple, 2 Android, none use the same interconnect, but can fall back to using the same charger).

Re: Govt mandated?

[Plumpaquatsch]

Apple chargers require lighting

Even if you mean Lightning - Bullshit. Apple chargers had an USB-A slot in which you could plug any USB cable to charge any USB device since USB provided enough power to do so. IOW only the first iPod charger came with a Firewire slot - because then USB couldn't provide enough power to charge an iPod.

Re: Govt mandated?

[Vapula]

Techniocally, it'd also prevent Apple to sell power supply that ouput directly on the Lightning plug as it'd not be usable on anything else...

Re:OLD NEWS

[NotInHere]

These articles are about EU adopting an universal phone standard. Switzerland isn't a part of the EU, only schengen.

The current story is about switzerland adopting the law.

The swiss people are smart: they only adopt the EU laws that make sense.

why?

[Noah Haders]

Where does it say that the purpose of govt is to regulate the free market? Why would the govt know better than industry which things should be standardized or not? Innovation is a Good Thing, and mandated standards pee on this.

Re:why?

[Insanity Defense]

The government must be involved to prevent the formation of monopolies or cartels that remove the "free" from free market.

Re:why?

[Dcnjoe60]

Governments are supposed to look out for the needs of the common good. Industry looks out for the needs of the shareholder.

Re:why?

[Dcnjoe60]

All monopolies are creations of governments. They don't exist in a free market.

Governments may allow monopolies to exist, but they do not create them. Likewise, there is nothing in a free market to prevent them.

Re:why?

[S.O.B.]

All monopolies are creations of governments. They don't exist in a free market.

The U.S. government has had to step in many times to break up monopolies. If all monopolies are created by governments then why would they break them up?

Maybe you can explain how the U.S. created the Bell System (aka Ma Bell) and Standard Oil monopolies and then why they would dismantle what they created.

Re:why?

[FrankSchwab]

Well, the Bell System WAS a government created monopoly, which fought tooth and nail against every attempt to nibble away at any part of it. All the government had to do to dismantle it was to repeal the laws the prevented any competition.

Standard Oil, on the other hand, was a market created monopoly where the government had to take aggressive action to dismantle it.

Re:why?

[msauve]

"Maybe you can explain how the U.S. created the Bell System (aka Ma Bell) and Standard Oil monopolies and then why they would dismantle what they created."

US laws created an environment where the Bell System could gain exclusive access to rights-of-way for building their system. The alternative would have been for Bell to negotiate rights-of-way with (millions?) of landowners. Their initial dominance was built upon government provided patent rights. Standard Oil was built on "mineral" rights granted by law, which allowed them to not simply own property for their own use, but to extract natural resources for sale to others. It also benefited from rights-of-way which were allowed to be used inequitably, both directly and indirectly.

Simply put, to the extent that they were monopolies, they also operated in an environment which was not a true free market due to government action.

Re:why?

[Darinbob]

Wow, what propaganda have you been reading? Historical monopolies arise all the time without governments forming them. Standard Oil, the robber baron railroads, De Beers, U.S. Steel, Microsoft. That doesn't mean all those monopolies were bad, because Standard Oil's monopoly provided benefits and the government didn't want to intervene there.

The free market if left on its own without regulation has nothing that prevents monopolies. That's why there are things called "natural monopolies" where the resources are scarce so that barriers to entry are formidable.

Re:why?

[Darinbob]

"True free market" is one of those religious notions I think. In the absence of a government there can't be a well functioning market, so perhaps a "true" free market means a dysfunctional one? Trying to learn economics from libertarian pamphlets is not a good idea.

Re:why?

[msauve]

"Without Government there is no 'right of way' as all ways are privately held..."

You're begging the question, for without government how are these "privately held" created, and how are they secured? Locke said "man looks for, and is willing to join in society with others for the mutual preservation of their lives, liberty and property." That government grants limited monopolies in some areas such as infrastructure rights-of-way in no way argues against those grants also resulting in other monopolies.

Re:why?

[tepples]

Governments are supposed to look out for the needs of the common good.

Supposed to. But they end up looking out for the needs of large contributors to their campaigns and friendly IEOPACs* more often.

Industry looks out for the needs of the shareholder.

Then get your behind onto E*Trade and become a shareholder :-p

* An IEOPAC is an independent-expenditure-only political action committee, sometimes called a "super PAC". Under U.S. election law, an IEOPAC has no donation cap so long as it doesn't donate to or directly coordinate with a candidate's official campaign organization.

Re:why?

[AmiMoJo]

The government can consult with independent experts and industry to find the best standard for citizens. Industry will pick the best standard for itself, which is often consumer-hostile. This is exactly what we want our governments to do for us.

This is actually a really good example. Apple and Nokia prefer expensive, proprietary chargers that go to landfill when the product dies. The EU mandated USB for charging and saved consumers money and prevented some environmental damage.

Re:why?

[umafuckit]

There is no such thing as free market anyway. All markets have rules and restrictions, it's just a question of what we choose these rules to be and how lenient they are.

Re:why?

[Dcnjoe60]

The United States is not representative of all governments.

Re:why?

[Half-pint HAL]

I had a private landowner complaining to me ten years ago about the way people were using rights-of-way on her land to go out for walks for pleasure. It was her assertion that rights of way only existed to allow workers to get to their place of employment...

Re:why?

[Half-pint HAL]

The government can consult with independent experts and industry to find the best standard for citizens. Industry will pick the best standard for itself, which is often consumer-hostile. This is exactly what we want our governments to do for us.

Or to put it another way, the government represents the people, AKA "consumers", who are on the demand side of the equation. I as a consumer wanted an iOS device that could be charged from a standard USB charger. I as an individual consumer could not obtain such a thing. I need to be part of a collective or corporate body for my personal wishes to matter a damn, which is why I need to be represented by regulators, unions and the like. The public body that represents all of European citizens took a decision in the interests of it's representees, making a compromise that adequately served all our demands.

The laws of supply and demand require some sort of parity between buyer and seller power, which individuals will never get in mainstream markets.

Re:why?

[Blaskowicz]

Governments also provide the most basic property rights, without which it is hard to have a buyer and a seller for something. So you can find people that want to get rid of both the government and private property, the libertarian communists.

Re:why?

[Blaskowicz]

I have a get-rich-quick scheme as follows : open a bank, open another bank, make a highly leveraged loan from one to another. Sell that loan to another bank or sucker. Run away with cash as quick as I can. But I haven't yet looked at the paperwork to create a bank.

Re:why?

[laurencetux]

IANAL EIIWIANYL

this can not be considered legal advise but short of posting signs every few feet (basically so that all approaches will have at least one sign in view) people can walk where they "need" to for whatever reason. This does not mean of course that you could drive an M1A2 tank on said land but...

i think a basic road and such might be in order

Re:why?

[KGIII]

I made it this far down the thread and, it appears to me, many people are using their own definition of "free market."

I suspect that, in the past, we had a certain areas where there were true, pure form, free markets. I suspect that those were in areas where there were little demands for markets anyhow and probably few items to actually market. I know that China was one of the first groups of people to do some of the standardized things (like weights and measures) according to What the Ancients Knew. But, I'm sure, somewhere back there was a completely free coconut market which may well have been rife with abuse or may have worked as well as some people envisage.

Re:why?

[KGIII]

I don't think I've disclosed this publicly but I'm a bit partial to E*Trade, they're the one that I usually go through when I'm doing my own trading with my portfolio. (I have more that is professionally managed and this is a learning/play exercise, or started out that way.)

But, to the point, assuming one is patient and actually wants to be a shareholder, an investor in a company, then owning shares is a pretty good thing. I've had a great deal of luck, detailed in other novella-esque posts, and it has been rather lucrative. It doesn't appear to take a whole lot of effort, in the manner that I'm using it, and it doesn't even need a lot of attention. I don't day-trade. I don't play with penny stocks. I don't do HFTs, and I never take the tax penalty for removing my money from the market within a year - all investments are long-term investments. Just don't be greedy, invest in things that look trendy, and bail when you've reached a certain value - don't stay in, don't be greedy.

E*Trade, mashing up word clouds, scraping a few sites, reading comments, setting a few Google alerts, and just being wise enough to shut up and listen - all seem to help. I like E*Trade as a lot can be automated and I don't want to pay a lot of attention. I tried paying attention for the first year and a half. I lost money. I lost a bunch of money. I'd trade on the slightest sign of trouble or boom. I'd buy and sell like the experts suggested. Nope... I lost a ton (probably a couple of year's wages for a few people here) and then I just gave it some thought and paid attention to the math involved.

Re:why?

[umafuckit]

I made it this far down the thread and, it appears to me, many people are using their own definition of "free market."

I suspect that, in the past, we had a certain areas where there were true, pure form, free markets. I suspect that those were in areas where there were little demands for markets anyhow and probably few items to actually market. I know that China was one of the first groups of people to do some of the standardized things (like weights and measures) according to What the Ancients Knew. But, I'm sure, somewhere back there was a completely free coconut market which may well have been rife with abuse or may have worked as well as some people envisage.

I think that's right. The poster I as replying to seems to have meant one thing and I another thing.

Re:why?

[KGIII]

I'm inclined to agree with your definition, if that's any help. Or at least what it appears you're using for a definition. Free is free and we don't have such a critter in this reality. Not even in the oft-claimed Somalia are the markets (likely) free. I suspect, given the prevalence of bullies, Somalia's markets are quite heavily regulated by their participants and probably have conformity as a barrier to entry and participation - and may even include payments of dues in order to be allowed to participate.

And I still get a kick out of your name. In interest of disclosure, I've shared your username with said friend (my shore-leave Marine buddy, as a reminder) and he laughed and laughed and laughed. I believe this is verbatim, "I wish I'd thought of that." The other one that gets me is smitty_one_each. "Pair of go fasters, one each... Moonbeam, one each. Stencil, one each, shaving kit, one each." So many lines that resulted in "one each."

Re:why?

[umafuckit]

:)

Free is free and it doesn't exist was what I was getting at, yes. However the wikipedia simply says that a free market is one where the prices of goods are set freely, and that wasn't exactly what I had in mind.

I don't know if I should tell you what my username means. It might destroy what you imagine it to be.

Re:why?

[KGIII]

I agree entirely (on both counts). I too don't think a "free market" can exist in today's world. I suspect that, at some time in the distant past, we've had a free market at some point on this planet and in a very specific location but I'll be damned if I think it can exist today. And yes, the username has a certain distinct impression (albeit, perhaps, not the correct one) in my head. I'm kind of fond of it. ;-)

To get back to the free market. I'm a pretty staunch Libertarian and I'm not even that stupid. However, I fall on the Socialist Libertarian side of things - though I don't prefer the moniker. The ends are, in my view, similar to socialism but my reasoning and means are quite different than what might be considered typical for a socialist philosophy. I simply don't think a free market could, or should, exist. The people who seem to advocate for such don't actually appear to know what one is and would be the first to be taken advantage of.

Ah well... I agree entirely with your definition. Free is unfettered and has no restrictions. It's absurd and an idiotic goal. Yes, let's rely on the honesty of the seller and require grandma to be fluent in the intricacies to avoid ending up being hurt... That's a brilliant idea! *sighs* Sometimes it pains me to actually identify as a Libertarian because the connotations have changed.

Re:why?

[david_thornley]

If you have a fairly obvious get-rich-quick scheme, it won't work. Either enough people have used it so there's no more way to make money, or there's something stopping people from doing it.

Re:why?

[david_thornley]

You have no right to buy exactly what you want. You can buy anything you can convince someone to sell to you. You have two distinct wants here: an iOS device, and a device that uses a standard charger, and under the circumstances you need to pick one or the other. If a government requires all such devices to have a certain standard charger, they are preventing people from innovating. Do you think we've got the best chargers possible? If you don't think that, then you can see why a government-imposed standard would be bad in at least one way.

Standards are good. A phone manufacturer can advertise that its phones use the standard charger, and people then know more about the phone and can make a decision to buy that includes that information. A manufacturer that uses non-standard chargers may find that that impedes sales to some degree. In some cases, nonstandard equipment will be useless. A lamp with a custom electrical plug would be useless to me without an adapter, since all my outlets are standard.

There are reasons for government-enforced standards. Government-imposed weights and measures don't impede transactions, but rather allow customers to know more about what they're buying. There are government-imposed safety standards that protect people. I can't run just any electrical wire in my house; I have to use wire that can handle the expected maximum load. Other government standards that limit what people can buy are questionable at best.

that's just the EU standard

[NostalgiaForInfinity]

The EU has mandated USB-style chargers by law for a couple of years now. These regulations do not prohibit proprietary charge connectors, just the ability to charge a phone from USB through an adapter.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Given technologies like USB-C and various wireless chargers, it's not clear that these regulations really are very meaningful.

Re:OLD NEWS

[DamonHD]

EFTA membership is important here I suspect:

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/...

Lightning Charger? Bias Much?

[John Bokma]

There is no Lightning Charger, the charger has a normal USB connection. There is a Lightning cable, however. And to be honest I love it that for once I don't have to think which side goes up (or sideways). If this standard is any good it will use the new USB Type C standard.

FWIW I rather pay a "premium" on a cable that will not fry my hardware and might burn my house down.

Re:Lightning Charger? Bias Much?

[Anne Thwacks]

Unfortunately, the option you are probably faced with is paying a premium for cable that will burn your house down. Theoretically EU standards mandate performing tests that demonstrate your cable will not burn the house down.

However, Govmints are evil, so your house burns down. Its the Murican way, hell yeah! And we, in the EU suck the Murican dick.

Re:Lightning Charger? Bias Much?

[Anonymous Coward]

The cable should be a dumb piece of conductor. A Lightning cable isn't. You might think that the ability to insert it either way would rely on special hardware in the phone, but that's because you're not thinking like a piece of shit that wants to force everyone to buy overpriced cables. In the Lightning cable, the hardware to determine the cable orientation and get everything hooked up right is IN THE CABLE.

That little bump before the Lightning plug? That's a chip. That's where the "insert either direction" magic happens.

About the fifth time you get the this accessory is not supported by this iPhone message on the included cable and charger, you'll start to realize why the whole Lightning system is a horrible idea.

FWIW I rather pay a "premium" on a cable that will not fry my hardware and might burn my house down.

That's the charger, not the cable. Poorly built chargers can catch fire, and they can do that just fine with an Apple approved Lightning cable.

Of course, you also need an Apple approved charger, because iOS won't draw anything past the absolute minimum USB charge if not connected to an official Apple charger.

Re:Lightning Charger? Bias Much?

[rsborg]

Of course, you also need an Apple approved charger, because iOS won't draw anything past the absolute minimum USB charge if not connected to an official Apple charger.

This is bullshit. I haven't owned an Apple-branded charger in like, 5 years. Anker and other manufacturers sell nice 5-port (and larger), 2A-per-port devices and they charge just as fast as if I hook up my iPhone to my Macbook or the occasional Apple-branded (iPad, 2+A) charger.

Re: Lightning Charger? Bias Much?

[AK Marc]

The US government requires car makers have warranties, and sell replacement parts. We should stop telling them what they can choose to sell.

Extortion prices for spare parts is called "capitalism" and any attempt to pass laws that protect consumers is fascist communist socialism that should get all the people calling for it shot, in the name of freedom.

Re:Lightning Charger? Bias Much?

[Plumpaquatsch]

http://android.stackexchange.c... - You USB fanboys are such a hoot.

In this case ...

[SwashbucklingCowboy]

... government standardization would be a good thing since the vendors obviously aren't going to do it themselves. Proprietary connectors mostly help the vendors with lock-in due to patents which only helps to pad the balance sheets of those vendors.

Re:In this case ...

[Skuld-Chan]

By Vendor's - you mean Apple. Its been a very long time since I've seen a phone that doesn't charge via usb (asides from the iphone).

Jeunism

[Max_W]

The problem with chargers cables is that it seems they are designed by young designers, who have a perfect vision.

But after fifty years almost everyone experiences a deterioration of vision. It is so simple to make an explicit clear design of a plug, still I am to put on my glasses just to connect a smartphone to a charger.

It is not only with cables, it's with everything, an iron, a headphones, etc. About everything is designed by young cool people with perfect youthful vision.

Re:Jeunism

[NotInHere]

I, still being young, are able to connect my phone to the charger in the dark, by feeling which side of the usb cable has the little "teeth". I then find out on which side on my smartphone the home button is (also very easy to find out), and then I apply my knowledge that the teeth have to be on the side facing away from the home button.

Re:Jeunism

[radarskiy]

Eventually you too will be a blind old handicapped morbidly obese woman of colour with no dexterity and the mental age of a 4 year old, and you will wish you had prepared your USB connectors.

Re:Jeunism

[tepples]

But can you charge not only your device but also a device that a relative on vacation has brought? My Nexus 7 (2012) tablet needs the teeth facing the screen, but on Christmas, I discovered that a couple Android phones belonging to family members needed them facing away.

Re:Jeunism

[Max_W]

...You are old, that is sad. ...

I heard on the radio a philosopher's advice to think about it this way: '"it's better be old and alive, than young and dead".

Re:Jeunism

[athmanb]

By the way it's not necessary to be able to see a USB A plug or cable to be able to orient it correctly. On a device, they are always oriented top up, with the hollow (for a regular size) or wide (for a micro) side pointing towards the keyboard. On the cable, there is usually an embossed USB symbol on the side of the cable that's "up".

Definition of proprietary

[turkeydance]

3: a business secretly owned by and run as a cover for an intelligence organization

Bad timing

[ericloewe]

At this point, the charger standard should really allow for USB Type C or microUSB.

Regardless, I hope, for their sake, that they actually make manufacturers bundle any required adapters with the phones. Despite all the fancy talk, Apple still only sells lightning to microUSB adapters instead of bundling them with the phones, effectively rendering the standard mostly useless, since everyone was standardizing on microUSB anyway.
This solution would also be helpful for the microUSB to USB type C transition.

Re:Bad timing

[phayes]

Are you really bitching that there MUST be a law to force Apple to deliver a 25€ adapter? This is the level of minutia that you think that governments need to insert themselves into our lives?

Re:Bad timing

[ericloewe]

Fuck off. Seriously, how on earth can you possibly consider this a bad decision?

Let's examine your "magic" (everyone knows Apple only does magic) "25€" adapter:
- It does not cost 25€ to produce
- The BoM is minimal: Plastic shell, PCB-mount lightning plug, PCB-mount microUSB receptacle, itty-bitty PCB and authentication chip. We're talking sub-1€ BoM.
- The BoM is entirely Apple's doing: If they didn't force all cables to have the stupid chip, they could reduce the BoM even further.
- It could be argued that the authentication chip requirement is an antitrust violation.

Re:Bad timing

[whoever57]

Are you really bitching that there MUST be a law to force Apple to deliver a 25â adapter?

Deliver, no. Make their phones compatible with micro-USB chargers, yes. Governments impose regulations and pass laws requiring standards compliance on products all the time. Especially in the EU, where there are laws which do such things as force standard sizes for foods (for example, in the UK, manufacturers were forced to sell products in sizes that were round numbers in grams and not just conversions from the old imperial units).

Re:Bad timing

[phayes]

iDevices are already compatible with micro-USB chargers (those el-cheapo chargers without a USB type 1 socket) without any law being necessary using a 25€ adapter. iDevices also come with the much more ubiquitous and useful USB type 1 chargers and a type-1 to lightning cable that can be used to connect to computers.

I carry around a high quality Type-1 to Micro-USB cable + the Micro-USB to lightning adapter because I must carry around two phones but oppose legislating such minutia as wasteful. Most people with iDevices are happy with Type-1 to Lightning cables and the few that are not can do as I do.

Re:Bad timing

[phayes]

Suce moi connard.

You're just another iHater making mountains out of molehills pushing more waste: Legislating that a decrepit connector interface must be re-engineered into devices that you neither own nor plan on owning. Your intention is not to help anyone but to punish those that prefer the Apple ecosystem.

Re:Bad timing

[AK Marc]

Yeah, and the government has all sorts of "safety" regulations around the wall jacks the chargers plug into. Do we really need the government to enforce minimum building standards?

Re:Bad timing

[phayes]

The sexual abuse of small children is a terrible thing, That the USB forum that you are defending has not condemned this shows that you are complicit in these odious acts.

See? I too know how to play the game in bringing up completely unrelated subjects & do the guilt by association ploy.

Were electrical safety to be an issue (which it isn't), the onus would be on you to prove that lightning is in any way inferior to USB in electrical safety.

Re:Bad timing

[AK Marc]

See? I too know how to play the game in bringing up completely unrelated subjects & do the guilt by association ploy.

So the plug the charger uses to connect to mains power is irrelevant to the charger. You have an odd definition of "unrelated".

Were electrical safety to be an issue (which it isn't),

Now you are claiming electrical safety is unrelated to chargers, charging cables and all that? Really? Want to try again? Or should I paste in some LMGTFY about charger fires?

the onus would be on you to prove that lightning is in any way inferior to USB in electrical safety.

Nope. I didn't assert either was inferior to the other. You asserted that the government shouldn't be involved in charging [electrical safety]. I dispute that absurd claim. Lying about my position to try to make me look bad just makes you look like an idiot. I can scroll up and see what you said, though I predict you'll deny it anyway.

Re:Bad timing

[phayes]

Still haven't mastered your puerile urges I see. After I called you out on your attempt to use guilt by association you move on to to the use of misrepresentation.

I stated that legislating the replacement of lightning with micro-USB when a 25€ adapter suffices is clearly bureaucratic overreach. In your response You made the baseless claim that micro-USB is superior electrically to lightning to the point that it becomes a safety issue. The onus is on you to provide proof.

Oh, good for you, you know how to scroll. Now all you need to learn is to understand what you claim you read. Provide proof of your claim that micro-USB is electrically superior to lightning or go away.

Apple will simply not sell phones without charger

[ffkom]

As long as the law does not also forbid to bundle chargers with phones, also demanding that the phone+charger price has to be higher than the phone-only price, not much is gained.

Sure, people might save some money on secondary chargers, but I don't know many people who ever bought such.

Ah, and BTW, the fixed, proprietary, non-user replaceable batteries are even more of a problem than the chargers, as they allow manufacturers to limit the lifetime of their phones easily, if only by asking unreasonable prices for batteries (like it is also common amongst camera manufacturers).

Ah, government.

[pushing-robot]

We're going to standardize on a standard which is itself obsolete and was replaced by a new standard, which we will surely standardize on as soon as another standard replaces it.

(Technically, micro-USB is two generations out of date, but only if you count the abomination that is USB 3.0 micro-B)

Re:Ah, government.

[rthille]

Yeah, I have no trouble finding things to attach to my 50-pin SCSI centronics style connector.

Re:Ah, government.

[AK Marc]

Generations aren't necessarily sequential. micro-USB and micro-B 3.0 were the same generation. They were competing, then complimentary. micro-USB is still current generation. For one, the micro-USB runs 3.0 speeds, despite the fact that the micro 3.0 is different. And USB-C isn't available, even if finally specified. Is there a phone or anything else with USB-C yet? If so, I haven't seen it.

And Mini USB is current generation as well. Many things that don't need the last mm squeezed out will use it. Cameras and things still come with mini as the current connection, and with power and speed equal to micro.

Re:OLD NEWS

[NotInHere]

Interesting, didn't know that.

If the industry actually had to pay...

[ffkom]

... for the environmental cost of dumping the toxic waste that is millions of perfectly fine but "obsolete" chargers every year, they might also rethink this pseudo-innovation stuff.

However, regulating the production seems to be just more practical than searching through all trash cans for illegal dumping of toxic waste.

Re:If the industry actually had to pay...

[Registered Coward v2]

... for the environmental cost of dumping the toxic waste that is millions of perfectly fine but "obsolete" chargers every year, they might also rethink this pseudo-innovation stuff.

However, regulating the production seems to be just more practical than searching through all trash cans for illegal dumping of toxic waste.

Of course, all they'll do is add a recycling fee to the purchase. California has one for monitors, for example.

Re:If the industry actually had to pay...

[Half-pint HAL]

Of course, all they'll do is add a recycling fee to the purchase. California has one for monitors, for example.

Which is fine. The cost of recycling is part of the cost of doing business, so can and should be charged to the buyer. Paying for it out of general taxation means there's no incentive for ecological efficiency to the manufacturer.

Re:If the industry actually had to pay...

[Registered Coward v2]

Of course, all they'll do is add a recycling fee to the purchase. California has one for monitors, for example.

Which is fine. The cost of recycling is part of the cost of doing business, so can and should be charged to the buyer. Paying for it out of general taxation means there's no incentive for ecological efficiency to the manufacturer.

Except that as long as the manufacturer simply passes the cost on then their is no incentive for the manufacturer to design a product that is easier to recycle. They simply collect a fee, pass it on and avoid the issue altogether. Now, if they kept the fee but had to take the product back and assume responsibility for it's disposal, then they would have an incentive to make it as easy as possible to recycle the product. I recall an article a number roof years ago about Germany requiring manufacturers to recycle cars, which resulted in them changing designs, such as the number and types of plastics used, to make it easier to recycle the car at EOL. Not sure how that worked out in the long run.

Re:From the country that has it's own power outlet

[angel'o'sphere]

The phone charging problem is something the free market can solve very effectively. There is no reason for government to dictate standards like this.
Neither can you buy an iPhone with an USB charging plug on the iPhone, nor can you buy an Android with the Apple charger.
So: you free market seems not to work. And I really wonder by what magic you think the free market would give us a universal plug? Care to explain? And care to explain what timeframe that will happen 'due to free market'?

I'm conflicted about this...

[Bearhouse]

On the one hand, I have drawers full of old phones and chargers...so I reckon standards are good.
On the other, my kids (and to a lesser extent I) enjoyed the extended functionality that iPhone sockets brought to (cheap, non-Apple) peripherals like bedside alarms, autonomous amp/speakers in the bathroom or by the pool, replacement car stereos...access to contacts, charging, music and all without Apple or Android "car OS" bullshit. And no, bluetooth alternatives for non-Apple devices do not count...only recently have they become remotely equivalent in reliability of connection, integration and ease of use.
The cheapo Chinese iThings mostly "Just Worked"...(OK, albeit with hilariously poor and inconsistent interfaces)
Well, up to iPhone 4s anyway.

All that came to a grinding halt with later iPhones / iOS.
Since my kids and cats routinely lose, loan, or just simply destroy chargers and cables, I have a bunch of hard-wired armoured micro-USB cables all around the house, the garden, the cars etc.
Fine for me and the wife with Android 'phones; for kids and visitors a small "tip" that converted the mini-USB to Lightening was attached with a steel flying wire near the end, (fishing line header, if you're interested...)
Neat little thing, bought for cheap. Worked fine.
Until an "update" rendered them useless...

Fuck you Apple.

Oh, and don't get me started on how later iOS updates rendered the user interface LESS usable.

Fuck you again, boys, and BTW fuck iTunes while we're at it.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to mow the lawn.
 

The likely loser ?

[Alain Williams]

The article claims that apple is going to lose. This is wrong: it will be the apple fan boys who will have to shell out for an overly expensive bit of wire. Still: probably a small fraction of what they have already paid in over priced kit.

Re:The likely loser ?

[Black Parrot]

Apple hasn't had much pull in Switzerland since the days of William Tell.

Re:The likely loser ?

[R3d M3rcury]

it will be the apple fan boys who will have to shell out for an overly expensive bit of wire.

But they make the coolest bits of wire...

Hopefully NOT USB Micro B

[CharlieG]

USB-C is a way better connector - No schrodinger's cat problem where the ports direction isn't determined until you try it the first time, so it always takes 3 tries. Aupports higher power etc - just a way better standard than Micro B

Re:Hopefully NOT USB Micro B

[Anonymous Coward]

And it can charge laptops up to 150W

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_Type-C

Re:Hopefully NOT USB Micro B

[aklinux]

I think USB-C is a more likely standard to be adopted. Many manufacturers, including Apple, already seem to be moving to this anyway. Besides, it will handle more current making it usable for laptops as well.

Re:Hopefully NOT USB Micro B

[silas_moeckel]

USB-C is the best current option as in 3.1's power delivery 2.0. Mind you it needs a data condom to be safe since you have digital interface to negotiate power delivery. In any event anything required by law should not require any licensing etc.

Re:Hopefully NOT USB Micro B

[NormalVisual]

Really? From your link:

USB Type-C devices also support power currents of 1.5 A and 3.0 A over the 5 V power bus in addition to baseline 900 mA

3 amps x 5VDC x 4 power conductors is roughly 60 watts. With a 5V supply, 150 watts would require 7.5 amps per conductor, which is just barely accommodated by four 13 gauge conductors. Of course, the four ground conductors are going to need to be just as big as well, so you're looking at a damned big cable unless you've got some DC/DC converters in the cable ends to step the voltage up.

Re:Hopefully NOT USB Micro B

[craighansen]

Bzzt. Sorry. You made the unwarranted assumption that the voltage is limited to 5V, devices can negotiate up to 20V. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:Hopefully NOT USB Micro B

[caladine]

Agreed - USB-C is definitely superior to micro B.
The one part of the lightning connector that Apple has right is the physical design. USB-C and USB in general has always had the problem of the male connector being in the device. With USB-C, that little tab inside the port on your device is smaller (and more brittle) than ever. Break that and you're screwed. The lightning connector has the male portion on the the cable, with all the pins around the outside of what you insert into the device. Superior design, in my mind. I'm curious as to why USB didn't do that originally - although, I guess it didn't much matter with the original USB connector sizes.

Re:Hopefully NOT USB Micro B

[NormalVisual]

Thanks for the link. I hadn't known 20V was on the table.

That said, it's still sounding like it's going to need a fairly big cable to accommodate the current safely.

Re:Hopefully NOT USB Micro B

[AK Marc]

But my laptop will only charge my phone at 10W with USB-C. My current phone charger is 25W, so hopefully we'll see phones that can pull the "up to 150W" numbers, negotiated down, of course, to what the phone can handle, and the cables will work at 0W, 10W, or 150W without having to keep track of "data" cables and "charging" cables separately. And maybe see increases in the max power draw by accessories, for faster charging of things off a laptop that's pulling outlet power.

UBA

[kybred]

Does it work in Europe?
IBM UBA

Switzerland

[GrahamCox]

Switzerland is a tiny country that isn't part of the EU. So it can do what it likes, and the rest of us can totally ignore it.

I doubt if Apple or anyone else is likely to care about this. Even if it became a worldwide standard, a USBLightning charging cable is no problem, and I don't think the cable itself has any DRM - I can buy a generic branded one in my local tech store for a few bucks.

Re:Purposeful obsolescence.

[iamacat]

There is no need for a charger or charging cable to understand external video. In fact, for security and price purposes, it's much better that they don't. Just define pins to supply electricity and let data cables have extra pins that evolve for all those other needs.

How is Apple the loser?

[sithlord2]

This is not about universal charger cables, but universal chargers. Apple chargers have a USB port, and include a USB-to-lightning cable.

So yes, Apple is already mostly compliant with EU regulations. Replacing the USB-A connector with a micro-USB is an easy change for Apple.

Obligatory XKCD

[Mass Overkiller]

Really.. https://xkcd.com/927/

Re:Obligatory XKCD

[tepples]

The xkcd comic makes the not-entirely-founded assumption that the new standard won't be good enough that two or more older standards will cease to be competitive.

Besides, Switzerland is just harmonizing to the power plug rules of the neighboring European Union, which already requires smartphones to come with a USB micro-B receptacle. This may take the form of an adapter with a proprietary plug and a USB micro-B receptacle.

Re:the market kindof already did that

[Vapula]

Samsung PHONES are already using micro-USB for years... Only their tablets may still be using some proprietary connector (mine is several years old so I can't say about current tablets)

You may add the HP Prime calculator, the Raspberry Pi, The BeagleBoxBlack and other which also use micro-USB

It's called a franchise (bribe). Same as cable tv

[raymorris]

> Maybe you can explain how the U.S. created the Bell System (aka Ma Bell)

It's called a "franchise". The govrrnment of the state or city allows only one company to run wires in the city. In turn, the company helps fund the politicians campaign. It was a long time ago that Bell did it, and of course for phone service most people now use wireless. Now, these government- mandated monopolies, called franchises, affect us most regarding cable TV companies, who also provide internet service. In most cities, only one provider is allowed to run cables; competition is effectively illegal. In a few of the largest cities, like New York, it's divided up by neighborhoods. The New York map is interesting- only Comcast can serve one side of the street, the other side of the street is only Cox . It's illegal for Cox to put a cable across the street and compete with Comcast.

Oh come on!

[wbean]

Don't you remember all the different chargers? I love being able to use any micro USB charger with any phone or camera. No more digging around to find the proprietary charger that I may have labelled to identify the device that it works with. It may pay the individual companies to design their own proprietary chargers and still be better for the consumer for the government to insist on a single design standard. The "free market" isn't some wonder drug.

Micro-USB "standard" is largely in place in the EU

[ctid]

It's a de-facto standard, to be sure. On my desk at the moment, I have Bluetooth speaker; bluetooth keyboard, a small "dye-sub" printer, a bluetooth mouse, my phone, a PS Vita, an NVIDIA shield tablet, the game controller for the tablet, and a charger for my camera's batteries. All of these devices are powered/charged by micro-usb. For the past several years, I have been trying to avoid devices that do not allow charging via micro-usb. I made an exception recently for a Pebble smartwatch - the "other" end of the charging cable is USB of course, so I don't need an extra wall wart for it.

They should have done this in the 1980s

[greggman]

They could have legislated that all phones must use an 80pin SCSI connector!

As much as I hate Apple's proprietariness I also hate the idea that we'd be stuck at micro USB. Not that I want smaller but I want faster connections or wireless or other solution so be available.
   

Re:They should have done this in the 1980s

[GuB-42]

In the 80s they probably would have standardized the round coaxial connector for charging, which wouldn't have been that bad, even with today's phones.
We still use the century old jack connector for audio and no one seems to complain.

Re:They should have done this in the 1980s

[AK Marc]

And if we were all stuck with USB-C? It's smaller and faster. And there's no rule that would prevent multiple, just at minimum a fall-back to USB. So you can still have your wireless charging. You'll want to keep a wire of some kind for file transfer and recovery, anyway.

Bury conduits in advance

[tepples]

Natural monopoly of utilities is a myth created by a history of inefficient allocation of rights of way. It's possible for government-owned rights of way to remain competitive. All a local government has to do is bury several conduits under a road or sidewalk, with the intent to sell the conduits later to competing utilities.

Re:Bury conduits in advance

[david_thornley]

Do you realize that you just said that a potential utility monopoly should be prevented by government action? You're saying that the local government should run several power lines and several water mains and several sewer and several telephone lines...to make a free market possible.

Re:Bury conduits in advance

[tepples]

The local government shouldn't be pulling the power lines. It should be laying conduits so that private companies can buy the conduits and blow power lines, fiber, or what have you.

Re:Bury conduits in advance

[david_thornley]

Why should the local government do that? Why not just have a regulated monopoly? You're talking about something that's pretty rare, if it ever existed, and saying it's what local governments should do.

Re:Bury conduits in advance

[tepples]

I'm pointing out that there's an alternative to monopoly. Access to rights of way is a resource, and monopoly is not necessarily the best way for a city to allocate it.

Re:Bury conduits in advance

[david_thornley]

There is an alternative to monopoly. It requires a local government to make provision for wire and cable running in advance. It's cheaper, and hence requires less tax money, to allow a regulated monopoly.

You claim that monopolies are government-created, and that natural monopolies aren't, because a government could spend more money to remove it. I'm finding this puzzling. If monopolies are to be avoided by government action, shouldn't government go trust-busting?

Unlike copyrights, patents expire.

[tepples]

It's not a perfect analogy, as it's common to own a house longer than the 20 year lifetime of a patent.

Re:Unlike copyrights, patents expire.

[Perky_Goth]

Patents schmantents. DRM can not be legally broken with or without them.

Re:Unlike copyrights, patents expire.

[tepples]

There's little case law on the extent of the interoperability exception because DRM hasn't been around for longer than one 20-year patent term.

Re:Unlike copyrights, patents expire.

[tepples]

If in this hypothetical situation, the previous owner had had Apple IOT installed more than seven years ago, the patents would have expired. Or if the current owner would keep the house longer than average, the patents would have expired.

Re:Unlike copyrights, patents expire.

[Half-pint HAL]

It's not a perfect analogy, as it's common to own a house longer than the 20 year lifetime of a patent.

Well, given the expected lifespan of a home vs a piece of consumer electronics, we can assume for the purposes of the analogy that patents subsist for 100 years or so.

Apple has a lightning to micro-usb adapter

[zerofoo]

Here it is:

http://www.apple.com/shop/prod...

All Android and iPhones that I'm aware of will charge just fine on most USB chargers - you simply need to supply the correct cable.

Is this really an issue that warrants government intervention?

Re:Apple has a lightning to micro-usb adapter

[angel'o'sphere]

We are talking about the plug that goes into the phone. Not the plug that goes into the power supply.

And guess what: the plug going into the power supply is only USB because laws demanded it, and obviously most PCs/Laptops only have USB and or Firewire connectors.

Negative connotation of harmonization to EU

[tepples]

Except a title like "Switzerland Harmonizes Phone Power Plug Rule to EU" might have a negative ring among Slashdot users because "harmonizing rules to the EU" was the excuse to push things like the Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998.

Re: From the country that has it's own power outle

[zerofoo]

Ever try to buy diesel at a station that only sells gasoline? Some two-stroke engines require oil and gas mix. Some old cars require lead additive to fuel.

Should the government force engine standardization for convenience's sake?

Choice is good, and it's your responsibility to have the appropriate cables and chargers for your device. It's also your responsibility to choose the appropriate fuels for your particular engine.

Whining about standards is ridiculous. If you don't like a particular charging solution - don't buy the product.

There was no 2

[tepples]

We're coming up on the 11th generation of iPhone (1, 2, 3, 3GS

The iPhone went straight from iPhone to iPhone 3G, then 3GS. There was no 2.

Re:Choice is freedom

[tepples]

If people don't want to pay Apple's prices they can purchase a different phone.

Until Apple finishes its "thermonuclear" plan of suing the Android phone market out of existence.

standarizing phone chargers

[unixisc]

I fail to see why that's a problem. Having a type A slot on the charger means that any phone w/ the correct cord can be charged - not just Apple or Android but also past generations of phones that may have used other types, like mini USB (used on the old Moto Razrs) or the proprietary types from Nokia, Samsung or LG.

Only issue as far as charging goes is iToys sometimes refusing to charge when not using the original white Apple made connectors. But even that happens only in certain environments, like a car's USB port.

As far as standardizing goes, USB has a pretty sordid record itself. Type A & Type B was fine, then you had mini, then micro, now Type C is coming out that is symmetric... Why can't the USB committee just standardize on Apple's lightning connector, instead of reinventing the wheel?

Re:standarizing phone chargers

[jmac_the_man]

Apple is using the lightning connectors (and the associated data transfer standards) to lock customers in to only purchasing from Apple. Letting the USB committee standardize on Lightning would defeat the purpose

Re:standarizing phone chargers

[tlhIngan]

I fail to see why that's a problem. Having a type A slot on the charger means that any phone w/ the correct cord can be charged - not just Apple or Android but also past generations of phones that may have used other types, like mini USB (used on the old Moto Razrs) or the proprietary types from Nokia, Samsung or LG.

Only issue as far as charging goes is iToys sometimes refusing to charge when not using the original white Apple made connectors. But even that happens only in certain environments, like a car's USB port.

As far as standardizing goes, USB has a pretty sordid record itself. Type A & Type B was fine, then you had mini, then micro, now Type C is coming out that is symmetric... Why can't the USB committee just standardize on Apple's lightning connector, instead of reinventing the wheel?

Well, several problems with the summary.

1) Micro USB sucks. I mean, USB Type C is coming out and for good reason - plugging in cables without doing the twist-around dance is a good thing. Rumor has it Apple actually gave that design to the USB forum because well, uni-directional connectors stink especially on mobile. Heck, there are several designs for the old Type A connector that are... reversible! Unfortunately, the design of the Type A means they are fragile

2) USB lightning cables aren't expensive, nor proprietary. The chip only comes into play if you want to do anything more than connect a sync/charge cable. You can pick up a ton of sync/charge USB to lightning cables on eBay/DealExtreme/monoprice/Alibaba for $5 shipped these days. There's a lot of clone cables out there. Hell, even licensed cables are only $10 on sale nowadays.

3) The chip allows lightning to do fancy things like send audio or video data out of it. USB has no such functionality directly (except through USB Host ports faking OTG - no one implements real OTG), so it's considered a "value add".

4) Reversible connectors are good. Imagine trying to design a phone accessory that uses the USB port - if you want to support a lot of phones, it's hard because half will have the USB plug one way, the other half will be the opposite, so you get stuck with releasing a product with a pigtail and some hokey attachment option.

5) Apple chargers have special resistors to tell you how much current the charger allows. USB Charging spec shorts D+/D-, offering no clue as to how much you can draw. And it's changed - 500mA, 800mA, 1A and 2A are valid. And devices that draw 2A have been known to explode/set on fire cheap chargers. Why the USB folks couldn't have adopted the Apple system (which is cheap, requires no special hardware (the resistors pull the D+/D- lines to logical 0 and 1 states) to measure or use and lets you mix and match chargers at will, I have no idea. I mean, why can't the charger tell the device it only supports 500mA? (FYI - the circuits to detect a USB charger are the same as Apple resistors - the D+/D- short coupled with "special resistors" inside the device across ground and Vbus means you detect it because the USB lines go a certain way)

6) Government mandating USB Micro is already limiting - consumers won't get Type C style connectors on their phone. I mean it's good it's standardized, but you really want to harm innovation like this? Of course, you can allow adapters for the Apple folks, and the Type C phone folks as well. (And face it - more phones are coming with Type C nowadays).

SO no, I'm sure Apple's really worried. Because likely the adapter provision will have to say, or you're going to really deny people the ability to buy phones that have USB Type C?

Re:standarizing phone chargers

[Half-pint HAL]

Why can't the USB committee just standardize on Apple's lightning connector, instead of reinventing the wheel?

Aside from "It's Apple's IP," you mean? Well, the Lightning connector has the same engineered flaw as mini-USB and full-sized USB: retaining pins are in the device, not the cable. As the retaining pins are subject to mechanical stresses, they should be in the cable, not the device, as cables are expected to have a shorter lifecycle than devices. Apple cables already seem to have a short lifespan (the outer casing of my iPad charging cable started splitting months ago after two years' use, whereas I have mini and micro cables in regular use that are 5 to 10 years old) and so the retaining pins wouldn't shorten lifespan at all. But Apple really want you to update your device regularly, so devices breaking is hardly a concern for them (or most of their customers, who are keen to update anyway). In fact, Apple received praise from some of their customers for eliminating the retaining pins that the old long connector had, as they didn't really think about the trade-off -- engineering as marketing.

Re:standarizing phone chargers

[Matt_Bennett]

Apple is big into type-C. Using the D+/D- to signal what current/voltage to deliver is risky, as a mistake can blow up the phone and it plays hell with the signal integrity- these lines are for data.

The big things that type-C allow are: 1) up to 100W power, source and sink, 2) widely re-assignable signal paths. The spec allows for devices to both supply current and to consume current over the same connector. To get to 100W, the devices have to negotiate what kind of power to supply (voltage/current). The spec defines the communication to determine this- it doesn't happen over the USB connection, as the information has to be available before the USB connection is established (such as if the device is completely unpowered/dead battery). You also have to be able to tell if the cable is rated to support the power requested- you don't want the cable getting too hot and catching fire. Since the data pathways are re-assignable, you also have to know if the cable can support the signalling you want.

I think that Apple is big into type C as it follows with their simplicity/aesthetic. One connector is all you need for power/data/video- and that's not something you can do with lightning.

Re:standarizing phone chargers

[abuelos84]

"by macs4all (973270)"

Yeah...

Re:standarizing phone chargers

[wvmarle]

Because the charger should have overload protection in the first place.

There is no reason a 500 mA rated charger should be allowed to deliver anything beyond that - and explode or overheat and melt or whatever. Instead of relying on the phone to listen to what it says and play nicely and not try to draw more (or the user accidentally short-circuit the charging lines) it should just limit it's output itself. Much safer!

Better is of course both ways, but you should NEVER rely on someone else doing your overload safety. Of course it's cheaper, but it's also what will cause problems.

Re:standarizing phone chargers

[jmac_the_man]

The 30-pin charger was originally picked over USB for lock in purposes too.

Re:standarizing phone chargers

[david_thornley]

Because I'm not going to switch to Android because I'd have to throw away a $30 charger? If I wanted to replace my iPhone with a high-end Android, that would be way down on my list of things to consider.

Re:standarizing phone chargers

[Plumpaquatsch]

The 30-pin charger was originally picked over USB for lock in purposes too.

Yeah, it had nothing to do with the fact that USB originally didn't provide enough power to charge an iPod.

Re:standarizing phone chargers

[jmac_the_man]

It's not just the $30 charger that locks you in. There's a bunch of stuff that you've probably invested in. Can you plug your iPhone into your car stereo? Or a speaker dock? That stuff which uses Lightning connection and used to use 30-pin. If you have enough of that stuff, replacing it is a tall order.

Re:standarizing phone chargers

[david_thornley]

If I had invested that much in the old iPhone stuff, wouldn't that make me more rather than less likely to buy Android when Apple did that switch?

Re:standarizing phone chargers

[jmac_the_man]

It made you more likely to switch than during the iPhone 3 to 4 transition. Because they were using a different connector all of the sudden, so you had to replace your stuff anyway. That supports my point,

But now that you have a bunch of Lightning stuff, that ties you into Lightning until Apple changes it again.

Re:Fuck That!

[Stormwatch]

USB-C is promising. But, it's not available on anything yet, so I can't say if it is the one to rule them all.

It's not many yet, but some devices do use USB-C: MacBook, Chromebook Pixel, Nokia N1, Nexus 5X and 6P, OnePlus 2, Asus ZenPad S, LeTV's Le 1 and Le Max, Zuk Z1, Lumia 950 and 950 XL.

Re:Why do we need a universal plug?

[sjames]

You must not remember before the EU insisted on USB charging. Pretty much every manufacturer had it's own plug and charger 'standard'. Replacement chargers, if available at all, were priced as if they were plated in platinum for the simple reason that there was nowhere else to get one from. There was no option for a universal charger or even a charger that might work on more than one phone.

Manufacturers shouldn't waste the people's time and money on non-standard chargers. They had plenty of opportunity to get together and come up with a standard and they didn't even try, so they needed one imposed on them.

Re:Why do we need a universal plug?

[angel'o'sphere]

This is absurd.
No, the situations before those laws where absurd.

We have far bigger problems and government should not waste the people's time on stupid issues like charging cables.

A la contrair: the government should spend most of its time on all stupid issues regarding where citizens are robbed by companies which are to stupid to follow common sense.

car chargers next?

[staalmannen]

I hope the EU will be proactive and mandate a single car charger standard. It would be extremely stupid to fragment the EV power supply market like phones used to be before the microUSB standard.

Re: From the country that has it's own power outle

[sjames]

It should force it to the extent that it is practical. You provide a perfect example. Cars fueled on gasoline are standardized but differing technology is allowed and provisions can be made for legacy hardware.

Swiss standardization

[murr]

Ironically, Switzerland uses a three prong power plug design that is used almost nowhere else in the world.

Wait wat?

[CurryCamel]

Apple, which has relied on proprietary chargers since introducing the iPhone in 2007.

iPhones don't use USB for charging??
Apple never ceases to amaze me.

Ahem.....

[codeButcher]

Speaking of standardisation. Has CH moved away yet from their own, Swiss-only, 3-prong standard to the ever-so-slightly-different format used just about everywhere else in Europe? (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mains_electricity_by_country)

On the positive side, they use the same 2-prong plug ("Type C") as many European and other countries, which fits into the same socket as the above-mentioned 3-prong (lacking the earth pin), so this is just some slight snarkiness that does not have much bearing in reality on phone chargers.

3-prong electrical plug?

[jandar]

standard household 3-prong electrical plug

I have never seen this standard in my life. It may be a standard in your country but as worldwide standard this is a fantasy.

The only 3-prong electrical plugs I've seen are computer power-cable extensions. My standard cables for standard 230V have 2 prongs, possible with an additional slot for earthing.

Re:Why do we need a universal plug?

[Anonymous Coward]

No one has answered the question Why? Why do we need "botulism testing standards" whatever that means?

It's your food, take responsibility for it and carry the appropriate botulism testing kits. If you don't like the arrangement your meat seller has provided, buy a different product.

We've turned into whiny little people and we want government to step in on every little topic we don't like.

This is absurd. We have far bigger problems and government should not waste the people's time on stupid issues like food safety standards.

Lexmark

[tepples]

Besides, the U.S. DMCA doesn't ban circumvention of DRM if the DRM is primarily controlling access to something other than a work of authorship. Lexmark v. Static Control Components.

DHI

[tepples]

But it is representative of the government of the jurisdiction where SlashdotMedia parent DHI Group is headquartered.

Re:DHI

[Dcnjoe60]

Which is related to either this thread or the original post, how?

Re:From the country that has it's own power outlet

[AK Marc]

Instead of choosing a popular power standard, they created their own - hypocrisy is great isn't it?

They took the standard Type-C Euro standard and improved it, by adding a ground. The standard was demonstrably unsafe, so they improved it. Types E, F, J, K, and N are all based on C, and were all competing standards. No standard won out everywhere C was used, and though the jacks are no longer C, any electric device that can get away with it is C, and works just fine in Switzerland.

"No vendor lock-in" != "free market"

[GPS Pilot]

the thought of a free market is more important than wanting to improve cabled charger technology.

This idea of "no vendor lock-in" = "free market" seems to be fairly new.

If you wanted to replace your driveshaft in 1930, the Ford part and the Chevrolet part were not interchangeable. Yet nobody complained that this constituted an un-free market.

Yes, imposing a standard type of charger will remove vendor lock-in, but it's quite un-free in terms of consumer choice and the vendor's freedom to manufacture the best-performing design.

I find Lightning cables much more convenient than micro-USB cables, and I'm happy to pay a premium for them. Looks like the freedom to use a Lightning cable will be going away in Switzerland.

Re:Oh, stop spreading Apple's FUD, what a pile of

[Matt_Bennett]

It is hard to design USB well, particularly with respect to power: a *huge* thing is making sure it's safe- Lithium batteries are dangerous when charged wrong, and if there is a fire, the lawyers will be after everyone they can possibly name in the suit. Remember that the lithium battery is very energy-dense- a lot of energy in a small space means the potential for a lot of heat in a small space.

All computers have some method of limiting the current out of their USB ports- if they don't, they can't get a USB Logo. During enumeration, a device requests more current, and the computer keeps track of the current available. If the current isn't available, enumeration fails. If a device draws too much current, the computer can crash, as it will drag the computer's 5V rail down. Most computers have current limiting in the form of a NTC resistor that will limit current but only after it heats up, so there is a delay, so short term overcurrents that aren't long enough to heat up the NTC resistor are dangerous. USB relies on the devices following the spec. If you violate the spec, you fail to get USB logo- and many of the big OEMs require logoed devices.

There are many USB hubs that can natively support more than 4 ports: Microchip's USB2517 is one (of many) I'm familiar with.

The 100W devices are coming as part of the USB C Connector, but with all that additional power, you better believe that the computer manufacturers are going to be careful as there is a much bigger chance of fire. To even get 100W, you have to have an active cable that identifies itself to the system as one that can handle the increased power. And Apple is very involved in USB type C development.

Re:Why do we need a universal plug?

[zerofoo]

No one is forcing anyone to buy a phone or any other technology.

You act as if owning a piece of technology is a natural-born human right. Owning a phone is not a human right and does not warrant government intervention.

Re:the market kindof already did that

[AK Marc]

With the exception of the top 2 in the industry, everyone else is using the open standard. That's the point and the problem. Anyone who feels they can benefit from abusing their popularity to harm consumers, does. That's why this is a government issue. The anti-consumer nature of the proprietary connectors.

Re:OLD NEWS

[NotInHere]

The city of london is an independent area in the united kingdom. It isn't registered as country at the UN though.

Note that I am european. I still didn't know :).

Re:Why do we need a universal plug?

[angel'o'sphere]

... and does not warrant government intervention

For you as an likely american. As you fear the government.

I'm european. Everything the powerful mighty corporations can not handle in a sane, intelligent, consumer friendly way: is a reason for the government to step in. Because: we citizens want it that way! Why the fuck should a company have the "right" to rip us off? For what do I pay taxes? For what do I employ my government?

And for fuck sake: Owning a phone is not a human right Yes, it is! No idea in what retarded third world area you live. In Europe it is a human right. If you can not afford one, you get one from the social care.

Ah, I get it, you are indeed an american imperialist? You want that american companies are not hindered by european laws and can rip of europeans so that your top of the pop 1% super rich can make more money? And, what do you gain personally from that? Nothing! ... so why do you care?

Trust-busting might be a good idea

[tepples]

You claim that monopolies are government-created, and that natural monopolies aren't, because a government could spend more money to remove it. I'm finding this puzzling. If monopolies are to be avoided by government action, shouldn't government go trust-busting?

I'm thinking yes. The city has a monopoly on its roads. It uses this monopoly on roads to bolster its monopoly on rights of way for utilities. Isn't using one monopoly to bolster another monopoly the definition of a violation of section 2 of the Sherman Act?

Re:Trust-busting might be a good idea

[david_thornley]

Except that the Sherman Act doesn't apply to governments. There is a natural monopoly of roads, and that does aid a natural monopoly on utility service, but the government takes care of both.

Re:Trust-busting might be a good idea

[tepples]

the Sherman Act doesn't apply to governments

A city is incorporated, and corporations are legal persons, and the Sherman Act states "Every person who shall monopolize..." so what in the text of the statute or in case law exempts municipal corporations?