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Comment by halestock | Hacker News Reader

Vendor lock-in. If I buy a Makita drill that comes with a universal battery, I'm just as likely (all other things being equal) to buy a DeWalt or Milwaukee circular saw as another Makita. But if my drill batteries only work with Makita products, I have a big incentive to stick with that brand.

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When I was younger and money was tighter, I needed a sawzall for a project and bought a DeWalt because they had a good price on a bundle. Many years later, my entire set is DeWalt because it was the convenient choice after I had two of their batteries. If I bought from scratch today I'd probably buy into Milwaukee, although the difference is small enough that I don't mind too much.

This is exactly why the “starter sets” are such good deals, they know if they get you you’re unlikely to change.

Milwaukee takes it a step further with the dual 12/18v chargers, because that would be a decision point that could make a switch - you could have all Dewalt 20V but nothing would stop you getting 12v Makita or whatever.

Makita batteries are probably what counts as the de facto universal battery format in East Asia. Lots of brands off AliExpress are compatible with each other and Makita batteries.

Also Makita is one of the few truly independent power tool companies that is not some big conglomerate. (Still a big company though)

Also unlike some other tool manufactures they still sell all the models of batteries for all the cordless tools from the late 1970's to today. They were the first company to make cordless power tools too. I just find it crazy they still sell batteries for tools getting almost 50 years old.

-edit (added a link)- These batteries are brand new and will work in a makita tool made in 1978. https://www.makitatools.com/products/details/B7000-B-10

Yeah, same reason there's no universal lens mount for cameras, and lots of other examples.

There have been open and de-facto open mounts though: the Pentax K-mount was such pre-autofocus, and micro 43, Sony's E-mount (albeit with many strings attached), and the L-mount all have varying degrees of openness about them.

At the end of the day, though, camera owners don't prioritise that enough in their purchasing decisions to change the market. People were happy to lock into highly proprietary mounts when Minolta developed autofocus (and migrated to the A-mount) and then Canon followed with their EF.

I converted a Bosch hedge trimmer to DeWalt (because I have a DeWalt drill) by just bolting a DeWalt battery socket I got from AliExpress to the bottom. Obviously not elegant but I was glad it just worked with + and -; no digital crap to deal with.

Yeah, but you can use those Makita batteries to power a lawn mower, or a microwave! (I'm not joking) (specifically 18V; there's also a smaller hand drill from Makita with 12V batteries that I have too)

My take: The situation could definitely be better, but it's also pretty nice compared to the NiCD days of 20 years ago.

Caveat: I only just got in on the battery powered tools game in the past 6 months. I went corded for a long time after being burned too many times as a kid wanting to use dad's hand drill once every several months, and the batteries being dead.

More like over 40 years ago for NiCD. Makita has been making cordless tools since 1978. Funnily they still sell those batteries for those old tools today.

But yea they did just announce a micro-wave.

The question isn't why the manufacturers try to pull this garbage, but why they are allowed to.

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