Ugh, this explains that crap pair of Creative speakers I ordered some time back. The speakers themselves are very nice and sound good, but they have this infuriating habit of powering off if no sound is received for ~5 minutes. (And they don't automatically power back up when there's sound detected)
Now it sounds like this was to comply with this inane EU directive. Aren't there some lower hanging fruit to pick like major appliances before hamstringing comparatively lower users like consumer electronics?
Such devices need a standby power supply, one that delivers a few mA, to drive the circuitry that wakes things up. Or a power supply that goes to an ultra low power mode when its load drops. Both are available.[1][2] They add to the parts count. The cost penalty is minor for a TV, but noticeable for really cheap devices like speakers and wall wart power supplies.
This is one of those problems that yields to regulatory pressure. With some pushing, a solution like [2] below becomes standard, and adds about a dime of parts cost to everything that plugs in, probably paying for itself in the first month of usage. Without such pressure, all the crap power supplies don' have it.
That directive covers about every electronic device, including major appliances such as washing machines, dishwashers, and electric ovens.
Also, one could argue that this is more important for the smaller items. Most people will have way more of them, and having, say, a 5W power drain, 24 hours a day, on a €30,— toaster that you use for, rounding up, 1 hour a week, relatively is a much larger waste, and feels way worse than having that same drain on a €1000,— television that you use, rounding down, for 2 hours every day.
Now it sounds like this was to comply with this inane EU directive. Aren't there some lower hanging fruit to pick like major appliances before hamstringing comparatively lower users like consumer electronics?