Micro-USB was legislated years ago when each phone had a different charger plug. Currently the standard is USB-C. I also suspect that the EU only mandates a charging & plug standard but it's up to the industry to choose one.

A regulation requiring companies to "let consumers decide inputs/outputs" would be much more burdensome than merely standardizing one specific connector per ~decade. With the compactness of modern devices, they'd basically have to spin a new board for every connector type a consumer might what. But you're right - it would be kind of neat if I could have Google make me a new Pixel 8 with the bespoke data connector from my old SPH-A580, so I'd finally once again have a use for that cable that's just sitting around in a box. This is what you meant, right?

> EU legislation on power chords

Regular major and minor chords were unaffected though :)

(I actually started reading this comment as a pun, as in "The EU can regulate music streaming - they already regulated power chords", and that made me smile)

This is a fascinating misunderstanding of history. Were you not around when phones all had unique, non USB charging cables? It was a nightmare trying to charge a phone or device if you forgot your charger.

The EU legislation will require USB-C, not micro USB

> but a real solution would be let consumers decide inputs/outputs.

When trillion-dollar companies consider a serial connector to be a proprietary and DRM-enabled apparatus I think the "real solution" is precluded by entirely unnecessary corporate greed.