Standards that are used by the government are uniquely important to the health of SDOs. They’re where a majority of their revenue comes from.

Emily S. Bremer, “Technical Standards Meet Administrative Law: A Teaching Guide on Incorporation by Reference,” Notre Dame Law School Scholarship, https://scholarship.law.nd.edu/law_faculty_scholarship/1406/

A final point to note about funding is that, as a practical matter, few standards make money. SSOs typically have a small number of standards that are widely used and generate most of their revenue. These successful standards thus cover the SSOs' overall costs, including the costs to develop more minor standards that are needed but could not generate sufficient revenue to support themselves. 76 The most successful standards are also the ones that federal agencies most often need to incorporate by reference. These are the standards most likely to have acquired de facto authoritative status in an industry due to their usefulness, proven quality, and widespread acceptance. 77 Thus, although a small percentage of all standards are used in regulation, the standards incorporated are often the ones that generate the bulk of the revenue necessary to fund standards development more broadly. As a consequence, eliminating the SSOs' ability to rely on the revenue that these most prominent standards generate would likely have significant ripple effects throughout the entire standardization system. 78