Yes and no. This is a short/mid-term directive and as well a power-plug standard. Which is common across the world for decades. We all happily live with that already. Anyway, your basic idea is leading in a good direction and shall cover all important features:

    * Replacement parts for 5 (smartphone), 10, 15, 20, 25 or 30 (plane) years
    * Open specification for replacement parts (manufacturer goes out of business, third parties take over)
    * Maintenance manuals. Like Lenovo provides for ThinkPads with explosive diagrams. FOR FREE.
    * If software is included, manufacturer must state in packaging how long upgrades and updates will be provided.
    * If software is included, it must be user replaceable. Even on an appliance, the manufacturer must provide instructions (e.g. EEPROM, replaceable chip, dongle which shows that software was user modified -> important for safety)
    * Repairability
    * More stuff...

And every half year this rules will be re-evaluated and will show it with traffic signal colors {green, yellow, red}. Therefore it will adopt constantly and not a fixed final law. The taxes for red signals will pay for this constant re-evaluation. So you can still buy an iPhone but it will show some green parts and a lot of red. And an Android will show similar things. While a ThinkPad will probably show a lot of green but one big fat red for the soldered RAM. It also doesn't state that a largely red product is from an "evil" manufacturer, maybe it is a small business shipping a small batch for a specific customer base. While, when you buy a product which is green in all areas, you probably made a long term investment.

PS: I doesn't necessarily need to rise prices, which politicians often do because it is "easy". Maybe replace the FAT or parts of it.

And this is why they don't let tech people write laws...

We wouldn't write every year a new additional law and instead apply one template based generic? And use tests before the high-court will rip it in pieces? And put the changing details in regulations?

Aside from that. I still love the first paragraph of the German traffic law:

    (1) Participation in road traffic requires constant caution and mutual consideration.
    (2) Anyone participating in traffic must behave in such a way that no other person is harmed, endangered or obstructed or inconvenienced more than is unavoidable under the circumstances.

The most important, sane and violated law. I mean? You don't need even one more paragraph. I says "Don't be a mad. Care about others. Be nice to each other.".

I'd rather it were about number of (perhaps some bar for popularity) models sold, not that multiplied by sales numbers. Apple shouldn't get a pass on Lightning just because the iPhone is popular IMO, it's about interoperability/repairability/longevity, not avoiding 'huh this is unusual'.

This assumes any vendor can use any port. But that's not true. Is it? Can Samsung adopt Lightning if they wanted to?

No, but then it's in samsung's best interests to use another standard and work to make it common enough that they pay the reduced rate of tax.

Even USB-C has licensing fees - although they are insignificant for most companies.

Apple in India is a luxury brand, increasing prices with additional taxes won't make any significant change in their sales numbers. The main concern here was avoiding more e-waste and allowing more consumer freedom.

The EU at least can't just introduce taxes: https://european-union.europa.eu/priorities-and-actions/acti...