This looks like an under-recognized, purposefully-anti-competitive gambit to lock people further into Apple's hardware ecosystem, limit consumer choices, and purposely ruin a customer's product if they stray outside the walled garden.

Both of the "tristar" and "hydra" chips are fragile and prone to degradation, when they are connected directly to the Lightning port.

https://store.rossmanngroup.com/ics-components-and-chipsets/...

https://www.ipadrehab.com/article.cfm?ArticleNumber=32

iPadRehab mentions a tester, on which site also explains the causes and symptoms

http://tristartester.com/en/

More technical discussion about Lightning

https://nyansatan.github.io/lightning

Replacing these fragile chips isn't a solution in the long-term because it reinforces an artificially-constructed monopoly. In the short-term, it may get a user's device working but it doesn't help but throw them right back into debt peonage.