The first rule of business; don’t give the public what you think they SHOULD want.
The only reason why Apple got away with that was because during Steve Jobs' second run as CEO, the products they introduced were often way ahead of everyone else. In fact, the more people think about it, it appears that Apple did the right thing with the Lightning connector introduced in 2012 because the physical connector itself is actually more durable than even the USB Type C connector introduced last year.