If Apple saw that enough customers switch to Android because of the cable they would change - free markets are amazing.
There aren’t two platforms with equal privacy available but differing power connectors.
I’m forced to prioritise privacy over proprietary connectivity.
If all things were equal then I could vote with my wallet and I’m sure the market would fix this... but all things aren’t equal so market isn’t going to solve this problem.
In that situation you need an external authority to set a standard.
Note that as consumer, I can't vote with my money for standardization. I can only vote for one of the proprietary solutions. So if 70% of consumers stick to one option, and 30% stick to the other option (because of other product features), standardization will never happen through market forces, even if 100% of the consumers would want it.
It gets even worse when more than 2 options are on the market, and vendors gain an advantage by locking customers in to their proprietary option.
It’s perfectly possible to have sensible hardware standards where doing so will not impede the market without insisting that all software be also standardised.
For the record I think it would be useful for Apple to have the built in Facetime client be able to communicate with other phone platforms. I don’t think Apple should be compelled to offer that currently.
The Android market is just like the PC market of old - a slow moving race to the bottom. Even today, most low end Android phones are still using Micro USB.
Again, to not be misunderstood, I'm not sure if charger standardization is indeed overwhelmingly beneficial for everyone. That is what I believe we should discuss here.
You can't have it both way dude unless you think Apple is afraid and going to loose money which might bring down the stock value.
85% of the world chooses Android. If you want to choose your browser, you are free to choose Android also.