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Comment by muro | Hacker News Reader

It's not that different than saying what the power plug need to look like.

we do not have the same power plug in all of the countries as every country has it's own requirements, sets of rules etc.

in any case, power plug type G is by far the safest and best. the EU should probably force everyone to adopt it, no? :)

Given the state of the world it’s never going to happen but I honestly think that there should be an attempt at standardising plug sockets across the world. It is kind of ridiculous that that there are 15 different types of socket. What is anyone gaining from this madness?

A one-to-one mapping between standard plugs and standard wall power makes a lot of sense. But different standards of wall power should not share a single plug; that's just asking for trouble.

As for global standardization of wall power; maybe in an ideal world. But in reality, it would cost a ton (way more than merely replacing plugs and outlets) and doesn't seem worth it.

While entire countries will keep the imperial system versus the metric system, I'll never believe in global standardisation. Even if it's strictly better, there will always be a cost to changing, and therefore not everyone will agree.

I live in US and all SAE measurements are expressed in metric measurements. I am studying structural engineering.

Even 3/4 plywood is always 18mm, not 19.05mm.

The European Union looked into unifying Europe's plugs. They decided that the cost was not worth it.

I would have been happy to switch to a unified European plug. Iirc, the proposal was actually quite decent.

https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-6-2005-1731-...

Each country still mandates specific plugs.

And yes, if power delivery was still a relatively new industry, EU absolutely should have mandated a single universal outlet that's "good enough". But existing designs predate EU by decades and are already so well-entrenched that changing them all to standardize on a single plug is too much effort to justify the gains.

But it ain't so with USB-C. Mobile rechargeable devices are a relatively recent tech, and the market has already largely converged on a single design. At this point, making it into a real standard, with the result that it's guaranteed to work everywhere, is a no-brainer.

> in any case, power plug type G is by far the safest and best.

That's utter crap. We had this argument multiple times, and somehow people without proof call it "best and safest"... when facts state that it is just not the case.

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