> you can buy a USB cable or adapter to charge any phone in the world at any gas station, or corner convince store.

And that's exactly because of the first round of EU standardisation. The gas station now has to stock only USB and Apple.

If we still had different cables for every single brand of phone, there's no way you'd be able to get them all at most, if at any, gas stations.

I recently had to get a new USB-c to minijack cable. I had to go through four stores, each stocking just lightning to minijack cables, before I found one I could buy. If Apple changed to USB-C that wouldn't have happened.