[peatmoss]

If you buy their brushless line, you can add a few decent tools to your lineup while using the cheap stuff for everything else. Same battery platform generally. I have a lot of their cheap stuff, plus a few good ones that see more use.

[sitkack]

You can buy or make adapters so there is no battery platforms. If we had a functioning FTC there would be no battery platform.

[peatmoss]

Didn't realize adapters were common! I agree on the FTC / standardization point.

[sitkack]

I have many cheap ryobi niche tools, but use Makita batteries in them.

[pandaman]

That would suck, because even the same company might have 2 or more different battery platforms. I, for one, have Milwaukee tools from both M12 and M18 platforms. They are for different applications and I specifically bought some M12 tools because their M18 equivalent was too big for my applications, and, on the other hand, I bought some tools in M18 because their M12 counterparts were underpowered for my applications. Imagine running a driver to assemble your PC and an SDS MAX hammer off the same battery?