It is exploitation to lock the consumer into a format in order to get repeat business, akin to tobacco company behavior. To permit the behavior is Yet Another government policy with its own set of unintended consequences.

Regulation world-wide has produced a large net benefit to the ordinary person, from the fact that an emergency room visit in Hong Kong costs 100 HKD as opposed to 2K USD in the US, to the ability to plan a life based on secure employment in the EU.

The “unintended consequences?” Certain suits cannot make a buck. Big deal. Their interests are overrepresented by trade organizations whose charters require those organizations to fight for a regulatory regime, in which the large companies are then permitted to category-kill and rent-seek.

This regulatory regime is labeled “freedom” but it’s anything but.

You can’t walk into a cellphone or a laptop shop and find a generic power supply system because each company is permitted to lock you into their power supply. I’m not an electronics engineer and there may be good reasons for this, nonetheless speaking as a consumer this is one area where unrestricted competition causes companies to design products for follow on business.

Business ecologies are determined by a surrounding corpus of law and real businessmen, as opposed to their paid shills at the Heritage Foundation, learn to adapt. In the European Union, if format laws are passed, the multinationals will adapt, and the consumer will be the winner.