This is very stupid. It's also amazing how many people feel so overwhelmed by buying a charger that they want the government involved.
First of all, my laptop doesn't have three USB-C ports so I can plug in a bunch of electricity and make it charge really fast. All of these chargers also transfer information between devices. These aren't the cables that run power from your house to your lawnmower.
That said, if we were to do this dumb thing and follow the example of the EU, USB-C would be the standard here, too. So, I would have won the bureaucratic sweepstakes with two of my three devices. I only have my i-Pad because my ex was an Apple user and I won that in the break-up. I only use it as a Kindle or to play some games if I'm on a plane; but, it'll be good for several more years. If I lived in the EU I'd have to throw it away the moment my cable craps out. Instead of a bunch of cables getting wasted, devices will be.
Namely, if you're lucky enough to already have the devices that use those cables, you'll benefit for a while due the subsidies and overproduction. If you lose the sweepstakes, you're forced to upgrade whether or not you want to; or, pay a premium for a product that's being rapidly phased out.
This is actually a common tactic among politicians (particularly Democrats) -- get around the fact that we can't tell people what and what not to buy by making it as expensive and inconvenient as possible to make those things work. It's the same thought process that has lead people to say that we should be able to have guns; but, the bullets should be a million dollars.
People are denying that this will stifle innovation. Of course it would. If this passes, anything that any tech company that wants to do that isn't conducive to the chosen cable will get stuck in a bureaucratic mess. Rather than just making a better device and letting the people choose, they'll have to go to Congress.
Still, bottom line, any company that already uses the technology that they choose to standardize will have a leg up on competitors. It might be small; but, in the market, every little bit counts.
No, we should not do this.
