Right...but before they were happy they were complaining about the awful EU (and they still are).

Here's John Gruber (who I like a lot, but you know when his Apple blinders are blinding him).

https://daringfireball.net/linked/2021/09/23/eu-usbc-mandate

And now they're complaining about the EU requiring Apple to open up iOS like the Mac, and they are pushing back against that.

It's the regulatory version of how everything sucked until Apple did it (so multi-tasking on phones is awful, until Apple decided that actually now it's ok and now Stage Manager is the best thing since sliced bread).

Won’t that degenerate the battery at a much quicker rate?

You could already do this before the port change, you just need a USB-C to Lightning cable (which has been included in the box for a few years now). Being able to use the same cable is nice and all, but in practice I want two or more cables anyway to charge multiple devices at the same time. If one of those cables happens to have a different connector on one end it isn't the end of the world.