I think he was saying that he just replaces his whole phone rather than pay Apple to replace the battery (including the effort of getting the phone to them and waiting while they do it). (It took me a while to interpret that.)

I suppose that there will be some number of phone replacements delayed if battery replacement were cheaper and easier. But I'd bet it's a relatively narrow range between "willing to let a pro do it" and "might as well upgrade the features anyway".