Comment by dwaite

The problem is that other than faster charging, the vast majority of people would not see USB-C as an upgrade, and instead a play to make them buy new cables and chargers. Even though Apple had switched over to exclusively bundling USB-C to lightning cables with the iPhone 11 (2019) and usb-c to MagSafe for Apple Watch Series 7 (2021), a USB-C port on the device does not in itself provide a clear advantage for migration - Apple switching could just be seen as a play to get everyone to buy new cables and chargers.

Even after the switch to USB-C, it blows my relatives' minds when I explained you could plug a USB flash drive into the phone directly. It is just a charging hole for most.

My hypothesis is that they were already planning to go to USB-C on the pro models last year an then trickle it down to the base model 1-2 years following - the SoC was updated with USB 3 features like 10 Gbps data transfer and DP alt mode, and they had software features like capturing 4k video directly to a connected external SSD. The base 15 was left on an older SoC due to cost/yields at TSMC.

Europe may have moved them to upgrade the base model 1-2 years earlier. However, by doing such a migration "begrudgingly" Apple got to use Europe as a little bit of a scapegoat in the press. The forced migration is the answer to the upset questions about the migrating generating a lot of e-waste in terms of obsolete cable and accessories, and in the consumer cost of upgrading a decade of old chargers and lightning cables around their homes, vehicles, offices, etc.