While I can't comment on the specific case or tech, and there are better examples than the one mentioned here, the criticism of companies trying to insert themselves into the building blocks of standards as a rent seeking strategy, especiallly when it comes to signing things, must absolutely be annoying.<p>I've been drawn into discussions about alternative security techs like white box cryptography, physically unique functions (PUFs), a variety of novel payments and data privacy technologies, and perhaps ironically, some very-uniquely sensible applications of blockchain based protocols compared to those other things.<p>I think we could put a lot of the hustles to bed if from a product and investment perspective we used the razor that betting you can outsmart your customers or market and seize some rent collecting thread in it by becoming "the standard" is a poor product strategy. Having your technology mandated isn't a product, since a standard isn't anything someone wants, it's what they <i>must</i> use. This makes it an anti-product.<p>I have seen it with certain archetype (not referencing parties here) who think they have companies and products because they have a proof of some assertion, pedigree, and credentials, and therefore you must invest with or buy from them, because they are right, and the alternative is to not be aligned to their beliefs, which raises the question of where specifically your PhD in the field is from and whether you are even qualified to decline their offer, which is to imply - you're stupid, and you should give them your money thank them for not exposing your ignorance. "Fund this or risk humiliation," must work in institutions, but it's not a product, which means it's not going to get traction, and without that user traction, it's not going to register as a candidate for a standards track.<p>In some very ancient words, "nothing forced is beautiful." Not referencing the parties to the original discussion specifically, but I wanted to say there is a sympathetic case to be made for the tension between standards bodies and other chancers using all kinds of institutional shenanigans to have a go at them, and perhaps this underlying dynamic is the source of the frustration that bubbles up and was expressed in the post.