Why Every Country Has a Different F#$%ing Plug
24th May 2016
The more you look at the writhing orgy of plugs in the world, the sillier it seems. If you buy a phone charger at the airport in Florida, you won’t be able to use it when your flight lands in France. If you buy a three-pronged adapter for le portable in Paris, you might not be able to plug it in when your train drops you off in Germany. And when your flight finally bounces to a stop on the runway in London, get ready to buy a comically large adapter to tap into the grid there. But that’s cool! You can take the same adapter to Singapore with you! And parts of Nigeria! Oh yeah, and if said charger doesn’t support 240v power natively, make sure you buy a converter, or else it might explode.
And aside from a few oases, like the fledgling standardization of the Type C Europlug in the European Union, this is the picture all across the world.
I avoid this problem simply by Not Traveling. But that’s me.