These articles are always missing the subtly of the issue. I'm going to ignore MPH signs & mile markers, because they really don't matter much for international interoperability. The important things are focused around dimensions on parts, packaging, engineering drawings, etc.
Sure, we all know that lots of areas in the US already use the metric system. I have personally used metric in the biomedical & consumer electronic industries, but had to use imperial in the defense industry. Generally the more advanced or international the industry the more metric it is. (That's why construction may simply never switch).
What people generally don't realize is that other countries are still using the imperial system because the US drives the market. Lots of imperial system parts are made in Mexico, China, etc to feed into US supply chains. Complete wild ass guess, but I bet more imperial system bolts are made in China than in the US.
It's not like there is a ban on making non-metric parts in the 'metric countries'. They'll do it, and often times non-metric parts are cheaper even coming from metric countries because of the volumes.
It really seems like an industry by industry fight, and by and large it is a ratchet turning in only one direction. Even the defense industry is started to use metric for some parts. I think 50 years from now it will be a moot point.
your comment about having to use imperial in defense industry reminded me of working for the US Navy in the early 90s, where a standard unit of measure is a "kiloyard" (1000 yards) when measuring the range of sonars. Apparently a lot of the early testing had been done using yards as a unit. Since people often round to the nearest whole unit, they thought converting those historical measures to meters would introduce inaccuracy, so they continue to measure in yards, which yields big numbers with modern gear. Rather than use miles (1760 yards) as the ranges got long, they use kiloyards to record all data (presumably because dividing by 1000 is easier than dividing by 1760). Only in America...
What's your point? I also try to only use metric in the us, and a m3 Tap and bolts is cheaper than whatever silly fraction equivalent even buying from.consumer stores here. So, yeah, the economics of all this is crazy.. But i think the point is to improve it even more by removing the odd ones entirely.
That if the only country on earth making things in imperial was the US, there would be a greater economic incentive for the US to switch. Since that is not the case, and many countries are producing imperial parts, a lot of the supposed benefits of switching listed in all of these articles are simply not real. If there really were high costs imposed by sticking with the imperial system, someone would be making a business case for switching over to metric as much as possible. As far as I can tell, outside of labeling and government procurement, nothing actually forces American companies to use imperial, other than their own internal cost/benefit analysis.
Sure, we all know that lots of areas in the US already use the metric system. I have personally used metric in the biomedical & consumer electronic industries, but had to use imperial in the defense industry. Generally the more advanced or international the industry the more metric it is. (That's why construction may simply never switch).
What people generally don't realize is that other countries are still using the imperial system because the US drives the market. Lots of imperial system parts are made in Mexico, China, etc to feed into US supply chains. Complete wild ass guess, but I bet more imperial system bolts are made in China than in the US.
It's not like there is a ban on making non-metric parts in the 'metric countries'. They'll do it, and often times non-metric parts are cheaper even coming from metric countries because of the volumes.
It really seems like an industry by industry fight, and by and large it is a ratchet turning in only one direction. Even the defense industry is started to use metric for some parts. I think 50 years from now it will be a moot point.