20 years ago we didn't have today's battery technology or capacities.
AIUI Apple didn't push anyone, Apple would be happy to be the vendor with the longest battery lifetime: If you use a thin foil instead of a hard shekll and glue it into place for stability, of course you have a bit of extra space inside the battery.
They indirectly did. The "Free Market" showed that it is way more profitable to sell a shinny skinny phone that many replace instead of fixing after a year. No one cares about what is actually better for the user when more money can be made. Prime example of that is when apple removed the ESC key in favor of a touchbar. That doesn't even address the other issues such as the environment which has an even smaller interest.
Back in those days phones would effectively become obsolete after a year or two anyway (from the perspective of a significant number of consumers) so I'm not sure that mattered too much.
Also there were plenty of Android phones with replaceable batteries available for years, the market just didn't value that compared to the visual and technical design improvements that weren't compatible with user-replaceable batteries.
Also modern batteries are generally a lot better.
> Prime example of that is when apple removed the ESC key in favor of a touchbar
How? Apple tried that, it failed, they recognized their mistake and reverted to normal keyboards i.e. it's an actual case of the free market working as expected and the opposite of what you're claiming. Also how do you think Apple could have made more money by adding the touchbar? Surely it's significantly more expensive than an extra row of keys...
Of course it didn't stop Dell going down the same path a few years latter due to who knows what reasons...
Sure, of course it doesn't always work. Did I imply otherwise?
Especially for minor annoyances, design optimizations/flaws like USB-C, glued batteries, no side-loading etc. that don't outweigh the other advantages that specific product has over it's competitors for the overwhelming major of consumer.
I personally found Apple sticking to lighting to be a minor inconvenience at most but it might have been different for other people.
I have a cable that'll charge all of my battery-operated devices, except my work phone. My work phone needs a special cable. Is that a middling annoyance, unreasonably annoying or… both?
The shop that replaces my batteries also makes a nice income from reselling one-year-old iphones.
I know some people consider replacing an almost new phone unethical, no matter how it's done. That seems a bit calvinist… the iphone can be sold for about half price and the buyer will get support and upgrades for 5+ years. From my environmentalist point of view, I don't see anything to complain about. Some people pay Apple a pretty penny to get the New Shiny, other people get a well-built device at a good price with comparatively long support, Apple profits, all three are happy.
AIUI Apple didn't push anyone, Apple would be happy to be the vendor with the longest battery lifetime: If you use a thin foil instead of a hard shekll and glue it into place for stability, of course you have a bit of extra space inside the battery.