memes

And half the time it came from the factory like that.

Stripped for Your pleasure!

The screws included with some items are such pot metal rubbish that they practically strip themselves out. I bought a few assorted packs of hex head cap screws and torx head wood screws so I can replace the included screws when they actually matter.

Phillips is meant to slip, on purpose. It is designed so factory workers in the past, who used manual drives, could quickly assemble things without over torquing the screws. Just go firm and continuous until the thing slips, then switch to the next step, if you have to use force to avoid slip, you are doing too much. It was simple and easy. Pozidrivs are meant to withstand and impart way much more torque, but, they are supposed to be used with a torque limited electric drive. So assemblers, and even robots, can do the job fast and to exact torque specifications. The result is that people use PZ drives on PH screws and immediately obliterate them, because the drive has too much grip. While the PD drive fits PZ screws but won grip and will slip much more, causing a ton of damage to both screw and drive. It is not entirely the material's fault. Using the wrong drive or choosing the wrong screw head is what usually leads to failures.

1. They're not a great design
2. Screws are made as cheaply as possible
3. People assume their drivers last forever. Just a tiny bit of tip damage and they're grind up any screws.
4. Philips in impact drivers is a sin.

They literally don't teach it at school and I'm pretty sure my grandpa couldn't tell the difference either so quite literally nobody taught me until I got a screwdriver kit that had both PH and PZ.

Is that what the PZ means, Posidriv?

From Wikipedia:

There has long been a popular belief that this was a deliberate feature of the design, to assemble aluminium aircraft without overtightening the fasteners. There is no good evidence for this suggestion, and the property is not mentioned in the original patents.

If you like Philips aside from that feature (being self-centering is nice sometimes), JIS the Japanese industrial standard is basically the same design but its not intended to cam out, stripping the fastner

To my understanding you can safely use a JIS bit with a Philips fastner to reduce likelihood you strip it. But you ideally shouldn't use a Philips bit to turn a JIS screw. You can identify a JIS fastner by a little dimple in the corner by the plus shaped indentation

Yes, the design is meant to effectively have a torque limit where the driver will cam out before the screw strips.

There's a lot of history around the Robertson and Philips screw heads back when assembly lines were becoming a thing.

tldr: licensing is why Robertson didn't spread to the US.

Robertsons are the Pinnacle screwhead. Torx and hex are also acceptable

I'd ask how, but I bought my nephew his first set of tools for his 25th birthday. He doesn't exactly know how to use them (I'd gladly teach if I lived closer) but none of his blood relatives are mechanically inclined.

Still, better to have a plunger and not need one than to need a plunger and not have one.

I'm buying... Flathead...

Now see flathead is number two on my list of fasteners designed by dark forces.