https://euobserver.com/science/144538
Every smartphone manufacturer agreed to use a common charger except Apple, who mumbled something about "advanced functionality". They continue to exploit legal loopholes to allow themselves to be the only ones who have their own charger and, thus, the only ones who can massively profit off of their adapters (sure, others can make them, but they still have to pay the license fee). This isn't the first time they've tried to lock down their proprietary adapter - remember FireWire?
We're only here because Apple made sure to obsolete everyone's cables from before they implemented Lightning. It's fine if you genuinely prefer the Lightning cable but don't pretend that this is pro-consumer when it's really Apple screwing consumers to make a quick buck.
This isn't fair. Each lightning connector has a small chip with MFI certification info, performs the magical asymmetric pin switching for reversibility, and in some situations it informs the device of the cable's purpose and functionality. E.g., at one company we built a custom lightning cable for high-speed (at the time) RT video streamed from a consumer camera. The cable's pins could be configured ad-hoc to support data transfer (when streaming) or power transfer (charging the camera) as needed.
Sure, today this can be done without a special cable and some custom USB drivers, but 8 years ago it was really cool.
Look, no one said the current state of things is good. I said no matter what Apple does there are downsides.
Obviously when faced with a situation where choice A annoys customers and makes Apple more money and choice B annoys customers and makes Apple less money, they’re going to pick A. They do sometimes leave some money on the table (you used to have to pay for the OS!), but only when it makes customers happy enough to offset the loss in money with gain in good will leading to future money.
Back the other brands came with a different, proprietary charger with a fixed cable for each model. Apple changed the cable once from the wide and weird dock-connector to the small and sturdy lightning port. That happened before USB-C was even invented.
As a long time Apple customer I‘m quite happy with their consistency here.
Right now, some have Lightning, some of USB-C. I hate having to carry so many cables when I travel (Lightning for phone, old brick for for Macbook, USB-C for iPad, proprietary cable for watch, USB micro for GPS).