To be fair I've maintained for a while now that the reason Apple uses lightning on the phones is because it's quite frankly much more durable than USB-C.
On it’s own that doesn’t mean much, but plenty of people dislike USB-C from personal experience.
Thinking about it, the best common data connector for interment use might be those credit card chip readers. They can handle more connections in a week than you need to recharge your phone in years. Sure they eventually ware out, but that’s in a business setting.
Every single Lightning device I’ve owned still connects as if brand new. The only people I ever seem to hear criticize Lightning are people who don’t even own Apple devices.
In my opinion, the form factor of USB-C was a massive mistake (even before considering the nightmare of competing cable incompatibilities) and they should have gone with the form factor of Lightning.
I've had my iPhone 11 Pro Max inside a Apple smart charging case since day 1, and for the past few months, the connection is really flakey, either one of the plugs is going bad. And its never left the case, the port looks very clean (no dust)
I've been exclusively iPhone since the 4S and its gorgeous retina display lured me away from my beloved Curve 8900. I am still not as proficient a typist nor as productive a person on the go as I was with my BlackBerry back in 2009.
(I did however ditch my rMBP years ago but I don't see how that could factor into a discussion about Lightning ports.)
I'd say that's a good compromise given the relative costs of a phone vs a cable.
That said, my Nokia 6.1 had the USB-C port fail in just a couple of years. Apple's design for the USB-C ports on their laptops looks extra nice and durable though. They are machined out of the aluminium of the case itself.
So despite the apparent solidity of the machined shell, something in the system wears over time.
USB-A has proven remarkably good, despite the "insert 3-times" problem, and it's now fairly large size.
Lightning is ok -- I have found that cables lose their "snap in" ness after a while, the arcing limits the connector lifetime, and I've snapped the tongue off a few (cheap) cables.
USB-B Micro has been pretty good for me, despite the "insert 5 times" problem.
USB-C has advantages of "insert-once", and smaller size, but (in my one-off anecdata) can have issues with losing its snug-ness over time. I thought it was notable, since it was with a MacBook -- so not something badly engineered, or cheap, or whatever.
I guess my view is that it's not a panacea, and arguably, on a par with things it's replacing.