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I know how regulation works :)
The trick is to regulate the right things in the right ways so that you get the right outcomes. There doesn't appear to be any obvious consumer safety angle here, the environmental angle is tenuous, the consumer convenience one I kind of get* but last time I checked my phone still has a Lightening connector, and the charging and data transmistion requirements of these devices aren't exactly static so whatever standard is implemented needs to be replaced in a couple of upgrade cycles anyway (hello USB-C).
* and that isn't the regulator's job, really
Anyhoo
Howard-
Yes, up till now it's still a voluntary thing which is how Apple kind of gets away with not doing it properly, but as someone who doesn't use Apple stuff, I very much enjoy not having to worry about some company's specific chargers. Of course the standard needs to be updated every so often, but that's no argument against it - the same would happen with proprietary chargers, just multiplied by the number of companies.
Additionally, this has helped make USB the absolute standard for most things that need to be charged these days (and that aren't Apple-related).
I definitely think it was a great move, and the environmental argument is not a bad reason either.
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I think the environmental argument is pretty strong, I have shitloads of old chargers at home that don't fit anything else. It also prolongs the life of the product as losing the proprietary charger doesn't mean it's unusable. Also, micro-USB (or USB C as it is now after probably 10 years or so of life) being the standard for phones drags everything else along with it: headphones, Garmins, laptops, speakers, etc
The one downside is that Apple lobbied hard to get out of it and managed to get a loophole inserted where you could use your own charging port if you provided a dongle to enable use of the standard port. I guess Apple had to spend all that money they have somewhere.
SwissChap
aggi
Why would it be? It's just a regulation, there are countless others, that's how these things are done.
And in this case, it makes massive amounts of sense, because I still remember the days when every single handheld device had a different type of charging port...