Light bulb sockets are actually a great example for the downsides of standardization, because they’re super suboptimal for LED bulbs, and are a large part of the reason for the transformers on many of the new bulbs burning out way before their rated lifetime. A better LED socket would provide better heatsinking/dissipation opportunities.

But it was pretty good for many decades.

How many more LED bulbs have been sold thanks to the fact that people don't have to replace the socket, just the bulb?

Having a retro compatible socket drove the adoption of more energy efficient bulbs.

MR16 is a 12V DC standard so it does not need a transformer, in theory it's much better for LEDs, and yet we hardly ever see it used even in new builds.

Every time I rented a place with MR16, like 1/3 of all sockets in the ceiling were dead, the power supply was inside the false ceiling and it was not possible to fix without making a hole. Needless to say lardlord need much motivating to fix anything.

Also, it;s not illegal to install random non-standard bulbs -> my last apartmentblock was built with some special, great, proprietary and patented LED-spesific socket. Guess what happened? 15 years on, the lamps started failing, and the manufacturere dropped production of anything for that socket!

Now they need to replace like a thousands light fittings across the entire block, there is no way to get replacements. Some of them are in awkward places and will require a special vehicle to reach.

Yeah, there’s a ton of inertia, with the standard socket so well entrenched. That’s pretty crazy about the proprietary socket. Seems like the big industry players should get a voluntary standards group together and make a big push.

we have only standardized the need to supply one type of connector, nothing stops USB from evolving.

I still use Ethernet at work, it's connected to the thunderbolt port through an adaptor.

Is it better if my phone has the mandated-by-[hypothetical]-1999-law original USB-B and a new-fangled USB-C?

Would it have been better if they settled on this?

https://www.mouser.it/images/qualtek/hd/703W-00_SPL.jpg

It has been working quite well in many electronic devices for decades...

I don't see the usefulness of discussing things that have not happened.

Is USB-C bad?

That's the question you should be interested in.

“The best is the enemy of the good.”

Saying that choices should never be made because we don't know what the future brings, is the same of saying that there's no point in living, because we are all going to die.

Of course they did not settle on USB-B in 1999 because there weren't billions of devices using it and it was relatively new technology.

Now it's a de facto standard already.

> Is USB-C bad? That's the question you should be interested in.

Perhaps I'm at least equally interested in "when something better than USB-C is available, do I think that should be allowed instead?"

> Now it's a de facto standard already.

That’s all the more reason to not make it a de jure standard.

> when something better than USB-C is available, do I think that should be allowed instead?

what about "USB C is here to stay so why bother to worry about something that will change in a distant future, if it will change at all?"

Cui prodest?

> That’s all the more reason to not make it a de jure standard.

on the contrary

that's all the more reason to do it.

imagine if we used your mentality where we would be now

hundreds of different de facto standards for light bulb sockets, power plugs, gas pumps, road size, traffic light colors. etc etc

basically the definition of hell