When a product becomes as complex as a cell phone it's not as easy as saying "just get one that doesn't have ${thing}" as no product has the right combination of everything for everyone but people may agree every product should have something (whether it be for safety, environmental, buyer protection, or convenience reasons). Once most folks agree that's the case, it's about "where do you draw the line" rather than "does it make sense to require ${thing} in isolation when there are already options with ${thing}".

Your link is from 2020 and does not say Apple was moving to USB C, just that the industry was. By 2022 the law requiring it had already passed, so it would make sense they were planning on doing it at that point. Regardless, a few years would be a lot of impact for a market where over 100 million phones are sold annually.