First off, she isn’t dumb at all. Just easily overwhelmed by technology. She was suspicious and took the time to try to find apple’s phone number to call them, but probably got bit by someone scamming google’s SEO so google spit out a scam number.

They started using USBC on Macs and iPads forever ago. They weren’t forced to do anything. When they switched from 30 pin to lightning everyone was pissed. They guaranteed 10 years of support for lightning. Which drum roll… expired in 2022. https://www.theverge.com/23312359/apple-iphone-lightning-cable-anniversary-10-years

If you don’t like it just buy android and windows devices? It’s not like there’s no choices and you’re screwed. It’s also not like they changed their stance over time. Whether you bought iPhone 1 or iPhone 15 the experience has been more or less the same ecosystem wise.