Perhaps this is an extension of: Europe Plans Law to Give All Phones Same Charger
Other perspectives are:
- I definitely don’t currently own a compatible charger / the cable to go with it. So I will not have a working phone if I don’t get a charger and the associated cable. So I definitely won’t be a happy customer.
- It is arguable that for original backers / existing orders it is a breach of contract to fail to supply something that was supposed to be supplied. It should be legally viable for a future change to the ordering web site to allow the user to suppress individual accessories when ordering. However that actually creates a fulfillment problem for Purism since then they can’t have a stack of a thousand phones already in boxes ready to go. They would either have to pack-to-order or to know the probable demand for each combination of accessories and pre-pack an appropriate number of each or to have each packed and despatched separately (which introduces its own waste) - and all sounds like a hassle either way.
- Your average user won’t know what is compatible with what. If the user already has a random collection of chargers and cables and the L5 shipped without either … will it work to reuse some charger and some cable? will it destroy the phone? will it degrade the functionality of the phone? will it generate extra support calls to Purism with people who have an apparently “DoA phone” but really it’s just a problem with the charger or cable?
Regarding bullet point 3, you can see why the EU is talking about going in the direction as per link above - but until they do and allow enough time for that to flow through all manufacturers / supply chains and allow that to reflect in what users already own i.e. flow to the end user - not much can really be achieved.
Most of what I wrote about chargers also applies to headphones (except probably the headphones can’t destroy the phone even though the phone could destroy the headphones).
If Purism fails to supply headphones, I can try my existing phone’s headphones. If they work, great. If they don’t work then I have to order a pair from Purism, with associated shipping and Customs costs. For headphones at low cost, the overhead costs could swamp the cost of the goods. So if it works for the EU with chargers, maybe they need to go in the same direction with headphones (and, no, I don’t want Bluetooth headphones, thanks).
I do use headphones for calls for my existing phone from time to time. Not extensively but it would be unfortunate not to have that option. I could live without it if I had to.
.. or at least ebay them.