What an absolutely asinine article. Do they expect Apple to have invented the perfect cable for every product 40 years ago and have been using it since then? The iPhone has changed cables one time in 17 years and now that a government agency is forcing them to change again the Verge is gonna take that as an opportunity to criticize them for complying with the law. What a joke.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Apple started including FireWire on the Power Macintosh in early 1999, replacing the SCSI connections users relied on for years to transfer data at high speeds for external hard disk drives and multimedia hardware like scanners.

Many MacBook Pro and PowerBook G4 models came with a full-sized DVI port, but when Apple started building unibody notebooks, it switched to another connector, Mini DisplayPort.

Lightning launched about two years before USB-C, so Apple’s port had a bit of a head start and was licensed by every major accessory maker looking to serve iPhone users.

Luckily for Mac notebook users, USB-C chargers from previous models largely work fine, so you probably don’t need to buy new cables unless you want to push your 16-inch MacBook Pro to the maximum 140W charging rate (which requires you to use MagSafe 3).

Looking back, Apple’s ever-changing cable choices have had two big effects: the company has often made decisions that led to industry shakeups that pushed both manufacturers and consumers to move away from actually obsolete tech, like floppy disk drives and SCSI.

Instead, big companies with the power to sway the market will make those decisions for us, which is how you end up with Blu-ray over HD DVD for movies and Tesla’s charging connector as the plug other automakers are rapidly adopting for EVs in North America.

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It's simple, you create a problem and then sell the solution to it.