> They have the ability to create a standard and make it stick.
This is rarely, if ever, the case. I can't actually think of any technical standards whose dominance originates from a successful government mandate.
This is rarely, if ever, the case. I can't actually think of any technical standards whose dominance originates from a successful government mandate.
[1] http://www.dw.de/european-commission-says-standard-mobile-ch...
This isn't the same as the government attempting to mandate standards for public use, especially with the intent to alter the way people are already using technology.
In your list, only GPS represents a technology originally used by the military, whose initial military specification still mostly describes its current function. Everything else, and especially the Internet - which grew out of a DARPA project, but certainly isn't one any longer - is either a vague category (electrical/safety standards), areas in which standards have not originated from government mandates (telephony, the Internet, time zones), or areas in which government attempts to shift standards have been demonstrable failures (metric usage in the US).
Thus proving my point. The US government has on multiple occasions attempted to propel the metric system into dominance in the United States, hand has consistently failed every time.
> Maybe the mini USB connectors used for charging mobile phones counts, too.
And yet my iPhone still has has a proprietary charging port.
Reminds me that it's also the same with A-sized paper, with basically just the US and Canada stuck with letter/legal/whatever.
I'm a bit confused about the paper sizes thing, though A4 and Letter are simply two different paper size standards.
These aren't "standards" in the sense that they define the parameters for ineroperability of technology in widespread use by many disparate parties.