There is an action: Apple developers programmed phones to slow down at peak when battery capacity is less than some threshold. Then there is their motivation or 'end game' for doing so: the claim being thrown around being that it's to push users to buy more phones. But it seems like doing nothing and just letting the batteries degrade would sell more phones becuase not holding a full day's charge and shutting off abruptly are much more noticeable signs of a phone's age and not many people will replace their batteries.

So if Apple is doing this to sell more phones they're not doing it as well as they could and it's more effort to do this than to just do nothing. Hence I am suspicious that this is their true motivation.

>doing nothing and just letting the batteries degrade would sell more phones

Or have people decide that they don't want to buy another expensive Apple phone that "expires" so quickly.

We can theorize about elements of their execution, but the question remains open as to why they opted not to simply tell customers that they were doing this wonderfully benevolent thing for them to extend the life of their phones? And, the idea that they were concerned customers wouldn't believe them doesn't wash. It's just not a sound-basis for a corporate decision like this. And, if that were the case, then why would they expect customers to believe them now?

They created the "problem" in the first place, and chose to clandestinely solve it in a way that happens to benefit them.

I'm going with Occam on this one.