And they would be wrong. As a person who has spent a large-portion of their entire professional life supporting end-users in IT environments (mostly Apple environments) I suggest that this:
Is likely accurate. Or, more specifically, that claim certainly sounds like a plausible explanation for the devolving nature of both usability and feature-reliability of Apple's products.
My sample size is now in the low tens-of-thousands of Apple products and many, many thousands of users over nearly 4 decades. My current sample-size for my largest fleet as of today is 276 Apple-devices across 270+ users. The state of Apple's usability and feature-reliability is in clear decline, and has been for over a decade now. This is something I get to see through the eyes of non-tech-minded end-users, rather than just through my own lens, which could easily be distorted by subjectivity. Hence my wish above for a return to usability, consistency, and feature-reliability.
Apple's hardware, on the other hand, remains largely unmatched in terms of reliability (we often get 10+ years of service out of Apple laptops; in the hands of k-8 users and associated adult staff, which is obviously a huge + on Apple's side of things.)