How long until the Internet is standardized?
 

Ever?
I mean, designers don't have to worry about screen resolutions, browser compabilities etc... surfers can just go about their business without downloading plugins and whatnot.. do you think a point like this is coming?

Never.

Even worse with cell phones.

Less money is made with standardization; at least that seems to be the thinking behind why there is no standard.

Yeah, I think it'll become more and more standardized but never completely. Netscape 8.0 permits a choice of rendering in both "Firefox" mode and "IE" mode, for example.

Without some lack of standardization there can be no progress as all platforms would necessarily be the same. As psili said, there is money to be made in nonstandardization.