Lightning is a much better connector for “iPhones”. Manufacturers have been playing fast and loose with the USB standard to get these crazy charging speeds and now it can be difficult to know what cable will do what. Will this cable charge at 5W, 18W, or 30W? Most of the time it’s just trial and error. With Pixel 4 it won’t even charge with some cables. And don't get me started on USB-C to 3.5mm adapters. With Lightning you know it’s gonna work.
Yeah, we've really just traded the complexity of different connectors with the complexity of having different cables, the only difference is that the different cables can't easily be told apart, but with a different connector it either fits or it doesn't.