this post was submitted on 08 Aug 2023
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It literally does not, as evidenced by the state of chargers in the 2000s and early 2010s, before the EU threatened to regulate if phone companies didn't get their shit together. Back then you'd have a different charger design for virtually every phone, including new models of the same phone. USB only became ubiquitous because the EU told companies to stop fucking around and legislate themselves, or the EU would make formal legislation. Most companies got the memo, but Apple decided to be cunts for long enough that the EU decided they needed to finally step in.
Consumer-based regulation being the end-all is based off the classical- and neoliberal ideas that humans are rational actors and companies have a greater incentive to compete than to collude. Both of which are lies.
Be very careful with this, because this is also the very foundation of democracy. If we start saying humans can't decide for themselves over insignificant phone charger, how could we trust them selecting the people who has much more power than that?
Who else is there to trust but us humans?
Individual humans don't have the ability to choose their phone based on their preferred charger. Each purchase is made between one buyer with fairly limited funds and few large corporations with extensive funds.
Which is the same as saying that every vote is transferred between one voter, with very limited knowledge and political awareness and a few politicians with extensive power because politics is what they do their entire life.
Democracy is, in many practical sense, a market for votes. One which is way less regulated than the one for goods and services