system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: Why do we have different electrical outlets on different continents? It seems electricity was discovered and then everyone went different ways with it. Is one setup better than another?
gpt
Before electricity, there were no fast ways of communicating across continents. When electricity was discovered within a nation, they never thought of waiting months to ask other nations about how they plug in devices. The nation just wanted to take advantage of the new invention as soon as possible! Therefore, there are so many plug standards as the first nations consulted their own engineers and scientists to make their own working plug.

Once people found out there were different standards, it was too late to change since so many buildings and devices have already been converted to one type of outlet.

In terms of different setups, there's two major kinds of standard voltage depending on the country: 110 Volt and 230 Volt. 110 V is the standard in North and Central Americas + western Japan. 230 V is found everywhere else. 230 Volt is more efficient power-wise but more dangerous due to the high voltage. 110 V is safer but it cannot supply as much power (ovens and refrigerators may need a separate high voltage plug). ~~Luckily, there are no plugs that can plug into both which is an easy way to burn out your device.~~ Nevermind... there are definitely plugs that can plug into both... check your adapter specifications and/or read your manual to prevent your devices from dying when using the wrong voltage!

Both of these outlets supply alternating current meaning the voltage goes up and down with time. They swing at a cycle of 60 Hz (cycles per second) in countries with a 110 V standard and 50 Hz in countries with a 230 V standard. This had influence on the refresh rate of TVs since TVs fixed their refresh rates to the power frequency to prevent strobing effects that would occur if the frequencies were mismatched. Nowadays with digital content, most TVs have been standardized to display at 60 Hz refresh rate.

Edit: Clarifications in the last paragraph.