For me it shows what kind of a company Apple is. Even companies like Sony (who install rootkits on your devices without your consent), comply with the spirit of the charging adapter law. But Apple tries to find a loophole, just to push their own agenda, at whatever cost for society.
But as you said, the other large corporations probably do it in some way too.
One could argue that the spirit of the law is an aim to reduce e-waste, and changing iPhones to USB-C will render literally billions of Lightning to USB-A/C cables useless within a few years. But there's obviously the argument that the existence of a need for those cables is in itself a source of e-waste production...
I swing both ways honestly, I love many engineering aspects of the Lightning port, and at the same time I recognise that having only USB-C to care about would obviously simplify my life a bit, even if I think for the purpose of a mobile phone it is an inferior port.
For me it shows what kind of a company Apple is. Even companies like Sony (who install rootkits on your devices without your consent), comply with the spirit of the charging adapter law. But Apple tries to find a loophole, just to push their own agenda, at whatever cost for society.
But as you said, the other large corporations probably do it in some way too.