You’re reading an awful lot into my intent and it is kind of comical. The U.S. and E.U. have always had tons of impact on industries all over the world for centuries why would I have a problem with that. That’s just how the world works. Hell IMO it would be great if the E.U. could influence us to finally switch fully to metric.

No you actually miss the point. Government intervention into companies stifles innovation. We should be extremely leery of any level of government control of any companies ability to barring products to market. Governments should not be in the business of picking winners or losers and least not until a clear greater social need arises and can be demonstrated. That is what has happened here with cellphone chargers.

However let’s think about what might have happened had some government intervened too early. Let’s say the EU decided this back in the late 90s or circa 2000 we could very well be living in a timeline where the “standard” charging port is 1/8 inch barrel jack.