[VidPro]

Grab a coffee, sit back and relax.
Sip while pondering my answers to your points.

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But of course, Motorola will make its own wireless charger, so you are back to square one.
Note, also, that chargers have been around longer than BetaMax, so how long before in your view, the market will decide?

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There's no need for the market to decide based on current wall chargers, but there is with wireless ones. You're misunderstanding the fundamental difference between times like video format/connector format, etc. (where the market decides) and things like wall chargers, where it doesn't. It's all about how strong the advantage is to co-operate.

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But there has always been a demand for standard chargers, I have seen many posts in many forums complaining about the diversity of chargers for laptops, for example, even within models by the same manufacturer.
You yourself say this isn't one of the times when the consumer decides, and you are right, in order to make more money selling chargers, manufacturers create unique connectors, a number of different voltages, and of course, depending on the battery being charged, wattage as well.
At best, each manufacturer will have a standard for their own brands of equipment, but if you have a Sony camcorder, a Canon still camera, a Nokia phone, a Blackberry PDA, they will need individual wireless chargers.
Since no manufacturer wants you to buy/use another brand of charger, they won't standardize, plug-in or wireless.

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In the case of wall chargers, most consumers don't really care if each device has it's own charger, because it's generally one device per charger. You have one phone, one charger (and maybe a car power-plug charger). For most people, this charger rarely even moves (I know I always keep mine plugged in to the same plug and just connect or disconnect my phone to charge it). So, there's no big advantage (realistically) to having a single standard. If I had several phones, and only ever needed to charge one at a time, a standard would be desirable, because then I could plug any phone into the same charger. But that's not the case: even if I do have multiple phones, I probably need to charge more than one of them simultaneously at some point; therefore, I'd need more than one charger, and we're back to one charger per device. The two are basically coupled.

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As I mentioned above, consumers do care, and have asked for standardized chargers. When you get a new phone, you get a new charger. Why can't the chargers be optional, and be bought only because you didn't have a charger already? Because it affects the manufacturer's bottom line if they can't add the charger to your bill. Simple as that.

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This varies from areas where there is standardisation. The wall sockets, for example, need to be a standard shape and supply a standard voltage. Because I need to be able to use any number of devices with a given plug. Similarly, I will use many different tapes with my VCR over its lifetime (though only ever one at a time), so having a standard is valuable. In this case, one device per tape makes no sense; I'm not going to have seven different types of VCRs to watch seven different movies, whereas I have no problem having seven chargers for seven devices.

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But there isn't one standard for video, for example, my wife just bought some video-tapes because the programs are not available on DVD. So this means that I do have to have three devices to watch videos, because in addition to the VHS recorder I still can't get rid of, and the DVD player which is about to become obsolete as well, I also have to be able to play back my digital video that happens to record on MiniDV tapes. Aside from the editing issues, MiniDV is much better quality than DVD, so I'm not going to switch to a DVD camcorder, nor at this point to a hard drive or flash memory based one, although those may be acceptable, but they would still mean a third format, unless I keep my MiniDV camera around to play that format, in which case I'll have four or five formats to choose from!
Oh, but you say, VHS is a standard.
Forget the various other current video formats I mentioned above, within VHS, there is the VHS most people use, but there is also VHS-C for camcorders that take a smaller cassette (with therefore shorter tape inside), both of these sizes also come in S-VHS formats, and then there is the VHS-D format.
Just try playing even a "standard" VHS-C tape without a special caddy, or an S-VHS, VHS-D tape in your "standard" VCR.
How is this a "single" standard, again?

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Now, into which category does wireless charging fall. I hold that it's the latter. Because if you have a pad that can charge multiple devices, and if the advantage is that I can just leave these pads all around the house and plunk a device onto it at any point to recharge, the charger isn't paired to the device. Just like the VCR and the wall socket, it's a many-to-one setup. So, at that point, a phone that is able to work with a standardised wireless charging pad is advantageous to me over one that is paired to a given device. Thus I will buy a phone that supports that feature, creating a market incentive for companies to support it.

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It may be that there will be fewer wireless charger formats than wired, I will bet you that different manufacturers will have different products, and your devices will need more than one of them to work.
I for one will pick my devices, phone, camcorder, still camera, whatever on their features, functions, operation, and often, comfort, rather than which wireless charger they may work with.
If you do otherwise, you will be compomising your needs for that device to dubious convenience of a single charger.

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Another user asked about "when have companies ever joined up to settle on a single standard?" Here are some examples (several of which were also influenced by defined standards issued by government or standards bodies such as ISO/IEEE):
- USB, VGA, Firewire, RJ11, RJ45 (in fact, almost all connectors in use since the early 80s)

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While these are certainly examples of standards, they are definitely not the "single" standard you claim them to be.
I have a printer that has all three of USB, parallel, and a serial port for connecting to a single computer. Other printers may also have either Ethernet, which may have RJ45 as a connector standard, but Ethernet is not a "single" standard, as there are various categories of the cable used, as well as three current standard speeds in common usage; 10/100/GigaHertz capabilities.
Many Windows computers still have parallel connectors for older printers and scanners, so since they are still in use, there is no single standard for printers as of yet.
In addition, USB itself has two "standards", USB 1 and 2, FireWire has 400 and 800, and so on.

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- PCI, AGP

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Again, you cannot use an AGP video card in a PCI slot, nor the other way around, so while these are standards, they are not a "single" standard.

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- Wi-Fi (notice how even when there were multiple standards, the market selected 802.11b over a?)

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Again, you can't seem to see the difference between standards and "single" standards.
Most consumers may have selected 802.11b, but some businesses have chosen 802.11a for the faster speed it offered, and of course now there is also 802.11g and 802.11Pre-n, both of which are faster than 802.11b, but not totally compatible. Many (if not all) wireless routers will slow down to match the slowest wireless card it senses.
If there was indeed a single standard, eveyone would be at the same level, or in this case, speed, such as 802.11g, and every other standard would be dropped. That is not the case.

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- TCP/IP

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TCP-IP is not a single standard, it is a collection of evolving standards, therefore by definition it does not fall under what you mean by a "single" standard. Keep trying.

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- Lightbulbs sockets

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I have three different sizes of screw-in lightbulb sockets, one is what many consider to be the standard, but also what is called "chandelier" sockets and another that is inbetween. In addition, I have track lighting that has lightbulbs that just push in with two straight pins into holes in the socket, but some such bulbs have pins that are round in cross-section, some are flat, and the distance between the pins can vary according to the socket they are designed for.
In addition, some of the bulbs in my wall unit have twist-on bayonet sockets, and there are several sizes of these sockets, as well.
Again, not a "single" standard.

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- VHS

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See my comment about S-VHS, VHS-D, VHS-C tapes above.
How is this a "single" standard, again?

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etc. Basically, anywhere that has a many-to-many or many-to-one situation for devices and accessories.

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I'm sure that the "etc." also has variations that make it not a "single" standard. But I don't think we need to go on with those examples.

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Where hasn't it?
- Some Apple proprietary stuff. The best example is the Airport connector which ONLY works with Apple's cards. No incentive to do otherwise, because one card is paired to one device.

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Actually, Apple has made the best strides toward standardization: aside from all the other changes to industry standards, they were the first not only to have a useful USB connector, but they dropped all previous types for keyboard, mouse, printer, scanner and camera connections thus making USB the only possible connection for these peripherals.
Only because USB was both too slow, and liable to be interrupted by other processes, was FireWire added for high speed data such as video and hard drives, although it is also used for high-end digital still cameras.

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- AC adapter power bricks. Again, one device paired to one adapter

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But again, just because devices are paired with the power bricks, why can't they have a common, single standard? Because manufacturers want you to buy their power bricks!

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Ultimately, in a situation where you use several accessories with a given device, it's advantageous to have a standard. Corporations are not out to screw the consumer; they're out to make money. If they have to screw the consumer to do so, they will, but that's not their primary intent. When more people will buy their product if they adhere to a standard and treat the consumer well, they will do just that.

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First off, corporations are out to make money, as you said. They can ensure higher incomes if you buy all the parts from them.
It is naive to think that customers will reward any corporation for going to the same standard that other corporations have gone to, by staying any more loyal to that company than another. By that logic, you'd have to reward all the companies that went to the "standard' by being loyal to them all.
An obvious impossibility.