Don't be ridiculous, people sit around and talk about how to maximize profits. That is the MO of a company. Engineers are not excluded from this, and a great many companies have destroyed themselves by making products which have no calculable lifespan. Shitty disposables make companies more money. Really expensive disposables even more. There doesn't have to be a grand conspiracy, it's just the only way to successfully do business. Personal computers very conveniently went obsolete all by themselves for decades. Now Apple has to push software updates which reduce battery life in order to convince you that there is any reason at all to get a new phone. Those updates have gotten a lot less optional, and the "improvements" a lot more marginal.

It's a philosophy that is reflected at apple through just about every corporate decision they have made. The inability to make incremental upgrades to any apple product, or perform repairs without it being a part of the apple business model. Or Air pods, which are basically an off season april fools joke.

The MagSafe adapter has itself gone through iterations which make them less backwards compatible and less functional. A major problem for power cables is that force at the joint between the rigid connector and flexible wire is prone to failure.

The original magsafe adapter solved this problem [1]. a small amount of force at the problem area provided sufficient leverage to disconnect the power. This ensured that it was hard to use the power cord in such a way that promoted early failure, and gave the user the option of two orientations, potentially lessening the stress to the affected joint. They phased this design out for the much less sleek looking bulky orthogonal connector, which stays firmly locked in place through all sorts of damaging configurations, while providing no other justification for the "design" choice.

That this product was particularly prone to failure is made evident in the class action settlement, although you may read this as you like. https://www.adaptersettlement.com/

So before you accuse me of being a conspiracy theorist for proposing that computer companies sometimes break your property for profit, You might actually want to read about what the courts are saying, although the case in regards to the deceptive trade practices when rolling out iOS 9 on older phones is still unsettled, the facts very much are settled, and only the courts and the defense lag.

[1] http://warungmac.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/original-app...