If a "new industry thing" is far superior and what customers want, why other vendors don't do it?
Now, if government sees a benefit in driving and sharing technology I'd be happy the government would actively participate in R&D.
They do, it's only bad when China does it.
I don't recognise Apple as the proponent of the new open standards. They didn't offer lightning to everyone, hell, even to make the lightning cable I'd have to pay a heavy licensing fee.
Apple is not open and proponent of the common standards, hence they must be forced to adapt open standards in the name of interoperability.
Personally I'd prefer lightning port on my phone instead of this stupid and fragile USB-c, bit since Apple wasn't interested in opening their standard.
The other vendors do it. The problem is that we then end up with a dozen of solutions that do the same thing, but are incompatible with each other.