If consumers would agree, people would stop buying Apple products because of this. Apple would be forced by the market to adopt the same connector. Clearly none of that is happening because nobody cares. If it's a big issue for someone they can just not buy an iPhone. That option already exists.

I’m saying that the analogy is flawed. There has never been a mandate or standard for the device end of a power cord.

It's not an analogy, it's a general principle: we put a standard in place in important industries with mature technology. Your car has a standard interface to a petrol pump. Fire engine has a standard interface to a fire hydrant.

Some people believe it's time for a standard interface between a phone and a charger.

Those are all examples the market would solve really well. If some car manufacturer were to release a car that cannot be filled up at a regular petrol pump, nobody would buy the car. Those isn't happening with phones because clearly not enough people care.

> Those are all examples the market would solve really well.

Fire engines? No.

We don’t have to reach for other industries. Electricity in the home is definitely “mature” yet we never saw the need for the government to mandate a standard for a plug on the device end.

The "other end" almost always has IEC connectors in Europe. Is this not the case in your country?

If there's no regulation enforcing this, it's because the EU doesn't think it's necessary — the industry has agreed upon a standard without intervention.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEC_60320

> If there's no regulation enforcing this, it's because the EU doesn't think it's necessary — the industry has agreed upon a standard without intervention.

Which is exactly what the EU asked them to do with chargers, 15 years ago :) And then they didn't so here's the resolution.

And if they had done it even when the iPhone 5 came out in 2012 they would have been stuck with micro usb. Would that have served customers well?

Maybe it’s a good idea to let the market compete and come up with better ideas than the government mandating things....

I have multiple laptops and various other gadgets that use different connectors.

What a weird coincidence that the power cable to my desktop fits my flatscreen monitor! What are the odds that would happen by pure chance?!

And yet my power cable from my Dell laptop doesn’t fit in my work provider HP laptop. Not does the cable from my son’s Sony fit the XBox....