Zeitlupenharmonisierung

Die Anschlussharmonisierungsgesetzgebung der Europäischen Union entfaltet ihre Wirkung unmittelbar nur bei sehr wohlhabenden Menschen, während die Mehrheit der gut situierten Weltbevölkerung noch einige Jahre mit legacy devices verbringen wird und ein großer Teil der Menschheit sich mit anderen Problemen beschäftigt.

Update: Ian Bogost ist noch etwas pessimistischer als ich:

People think the shape of the plug is the only thing that matters in a cable. It does matter: If you can’t plug the thing in, it’s useless. But the mere joining of a cable’s end with its matching socket is just the threshold challenge, and one that leads to other woes. In fact, a bunch of cables that look the same—with matching plugs that fit the same-size holes—may all do different things. This is the second circle of our cable hell: My USB-C may not be the same as yours. And the USB-C you bought two years ago may not be the same as the one you got today. And that means it might not do what you now assume it can. [...]

Hope persists that someday, eventually, this hell can be escaped—and that, given sufficient standardization, regulatory intervention, and consumer demand, a winner will emerge in the battle of the plugs. But the dream of having a universal cable is always and forever doomed, because cables, like humankind itself, are subject to the curse of time, the most brutal standard of them all.