Indeed, were the detector not connected to the warning system, the fire alarm would be useless. Again, telephones are useful because no procedure is required to connect to the telephone system. As recently as last month, I spent about fifteen minutes in a room with a dozen or so highly paid professionals waiting for an ITV system to be connected to a remote location. Good technology is standardized. One telephone will connect to any other telephone in the world.
Standardization promotes interoperability.
Interoperability means that you have choices, that you are not locked into one supplier or vendor. Technology which requires that you own a MacIntosh computer to play the video, or that you purchase a copy of MS-Word in order to view the document, or that requires that you connect with AOL in order to send email, is bad technology. I can't believe how much of this bad technology we have purchased over the years, and I conclude that there must be no alternative. But such bad technologies will be replaced. Simplicity' is a slippery concept, but the best technologies can be learned by looking at the input device and not by studying a manual.