zlacker

Before concluding that the NHS health record is the only option, you should consider industry standards like USB, which in some cases have worked well. We must have a failure-and-improvement cycle in case the standard is bad and fundamentally doesn’t work. We forgo that cycle when the government takes up the cause, even worse yet when the regulators are captured by some collusive fiend.

>>the_op+(OP)
USB is now a pile of incompatible standards in a trench coat, holding hands with a menagerie of incompatible connectors in another trench coat, all wrapped in a third larger trench coat and claiming to be a single universal standard.

>>taneq+s2
Yeah, I was going to say the same, just not as creatively.

USB is not the poster child for successful industry-led standards.

>>taneq+s2
I really hope you get to write the forward for the next published 3GPP specification.

>>taneq+s2
Yeah, but at the end of the day the serial bus seems to work well enough.

Power delivery is wonky, but it’s pretty rare, bordering on never for me anyway, to plug in a peripheral and not have it just work.

>>bernie+F3
> USB is not the poster child for successful industry-led standards.

Every day billions of devices use USB for charging and data transfer and work just fine.. was there some government intervention that jumped in to make that work that I am unfamiliar with?

However the sausage was made.. and is still being made... may be imperfect and ugly but USB seems pretty darn successful!

Bluetooth too!

>>the_op+(OP)
The paradox of maintaining good standards are that they don't break, and are hence, paid less to maintain. Or seem to not even exist.

Look at how well DNS, or TCP/IP is maintained, or Wikimedia is run

>>bernie+F3
What’s an alternative system that’s better?

Apple’s Lightning has some of the worst connectors ever. I have about 5 USB-C cables and about 10 Lightning cables in my home. Each Lightning cable cost me more than 2x rhe most expensive USB-C cable bought from a convenience store and yet 4/5 of the Lightning cables have their wiring inside exposed while the USB-C ones could pass off as new.

The only issue I’ve ever had with a device on the USB-C side is 1 cable that is incapable of charging my wife’s macbook.

Guess how many of my Apple made Lightning cables are capable of charging my wife’s MacBook.

>>Jamiso+h7
Not to be that guy, but there was the intervention of the EU to force phone makers to use USB...

>>dghlsa+66
Power delivery is the worst, but for a long time it was super random whether you'd get USB2 or USB3 speed, wait sorry USB3 High Speed or USB3 Full Speed or whatever they renamed it to. And then there's the confusion between USB 1/2/3/etc. and A/B/mini-A/mini-B/micro-A/micro-B/C connectors, and the fact that it requires a half-page infographic to just sum up the latter (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB#Connector_type_quick_refer...). Overall I feel that the USB Working Group, wait the USB Promoter Group, wait- who even are they? should take a vow of penance and refer to themselves as the SB Group until they sort this out.

>>ArnoVW+oa
No, you be that guy. As many gripes as I have with USB, the EU forcing all phone manufacturers to use a common charging standard was huge. This is the kind of thing where government action really can improve on a Nash equilibrium.

>>ArnoVW+oa
Right, but that is entirely unrelated to USB working -- the regulation exists long after USB had proven itself.. because it had proven itself.