[thedman9052]

I'd imagine something as important as docking would go more like USB-C adoption. There will be a standard, but a powerful holdout will insist on their proprietary solution because it's "safer" or something. Meanwhile everyone is shouting at them to just use the standard, until it's finally enforced by legislation.

The difference is something like phone ports and docking are things which end users readily benefit from having interoperability, so it's a selling point and there's market pressure to conform. Factories are bespoke installations and they often run without major changes for many years at a time. There's less pressure for them to have interchangeability when they don't move and don't interact with each other.

[imglorp]

There is an international docking standard

  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Docking_System_Standard

But if ever (hopefully) colonize space, would there be a single government to legislate standards? I'm less optimistic here: a feudal model seems more likely with widely spread, isolated communities.