The problems described in both above posts seem to support my idea - funding for the long-term creation of real, useful standards backed by government authority - and funding for the creation of fundamental bits of the architecture for everyone else to use that are fundamentally reliable and secure.

The situation kind of reminds me of 19th century railroads and track gauge - somebody had to step in a tell everybody to use the same gauge, to stop railroads from using alternative track gauges as a self-destructive competitive measure.