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Comment by jdminhbg | Hacker News Reader

No, OP is referring to the fact that the companies that are big enough to be subject to the EU DSA's rules about platforms are all American. So any fines handed down for violations of the DSA are exclusively to American big tech firms. The rejoinder is that the rules apply to everyone, it just happens that the companies that are subject are American.

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Quick fact check: DSA (more specifically, VLOPs regulations) also applies to AliExpress, Temu, Shein, Pornhub, TikTok, Zalando, and others.

There are European companies that are under the regulation as well.

The DSA is the part that applies to all companies in some way as well (things like the need for moderation and a way for people to reach you with complaints). The DMA is about the market and how to deal with monopolies.

the USB-C legislation was pretty clearly directed at Apple alone

...and now we get stupid overly complex and fragile connectors on things like laptops instead of simple and robust barrel plugs.

I think you mean: 700 different permutations of barrel plug diameter, sex and voltage?

There has been maybe two dozen different barrel plugs widely used over the last two decades, and "12V" and "20V" were already a de-facto standard for laptops with 2S and 3S batteries respectively (there was some artificial segmentation like 18.5V, 19V, 19.5V, 20V, etc. but they are all within tolerance range). I have not seen a male laptop; they are always female, being the "receiver" of the power.

Search for "laptop" here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coaxial_power_connector#Listin...

Two dozen different plugs over the last two decades means that we're averaging 1.2 different barrel plugs per year.

That leaves out all the "what is a computer?" devices that had all sort of plugs that wouldn't be barrel: tablets, chromebooks, raspberry pi, e-readers etc.

Same for all the smaller dedicated devices (audio recorders, camera, controllers etc.)

Those didn't go the barrel plug route in the first place to allow for charging through the same port, and would have been a loophole if barrel was mandated. USB-C was honestly the only option that made sense IMHO.

tablets, chromebooks

Most of those used either USB or a barrel plug depending on their size.

raspberry pi, e-readers

USB.

Same for all the smaller dedicated devices (audio recorders, camera, controllers etc.)

Many of those use smaller barrel plugs, appropriate for their lower voltage.

The main problem with USB-C is the tiny fragile connector (search for images of "bent USB-C"), and the fact that it's a standard that tries to be what should really be a bunch of separate standards. It's hard to get a barrel plug wrong. It's too easy to get USB-C wrong, and cause damaged devices:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33713713

No, it wasn't. The usb forum could have decided to use a lightning compatible standard, but there were problems with it.

Besides, apple are one of the decision makers in the usb c standard, the legislation mandated a standard, but not a specific one, just the same one for all, and this forum which includes apple decided to go with usb c https://www.usb.org/members

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