Cool. Yet this behavior (and worse) is widespread and not being punished by moderators except for the most blatantly obnoxious cases. Guidelines are only relevant to the extent that they are enforced, otherwise they're just a wish list, not a code of conduct.

Speaking of good faith, a good faith reading of their comment would be that they think Apple is intentionally maintaining a non-standard connector for their smartphone range despite knowing that switching to USB-C would be beneficial to their users.

Alleging that Apple acts in bad faith hardly seems like a violation of HN guidelines. If anything, the claim that they put the needs of the users first would seem the preposterous one as one would expect them to be beholden to their shareholders (and thus profit) above all, not their customers, and there are plenty of reasons why maintaining their own connector might be more profitable.