I mostly agree… but isn’t it possible that they kept the overall cost fixed and spent the extra $30 from the charger making slightly better phones?

I think it’s good they stopped including the charger since i already have at least 10 apple branded ones myself but I have no faith they didn’t also get better margins for this “generosity”.

If they really wanted to, they could offer two versions: one which includes a charger, and another which does not and donates $5 to an environmental charity.

They don't even have to offer two versions, they can just "give the charger for free", or "donate $X to an environmental charity".

>If they want to save the environment they should have kept the price the same and knocked off 30 dollars if you didn't want the charger.

This is what they are already doing. You can buy the phone plus the charger or just the phone for 30$ less.

> knocked off 30 dollars if you didn't want the charger

A charger cost them less than $1. Checkout AliExpress to get an idea of the real price of things. Of course because they sell so many iPhones, that still represents in the order of 100 million dollars saved per year for Apple.

Have you seen a comparative teardown of an Apple charger vs a $1 Aliexpress charger? They're completely different internally because the cheap ones skip all the required isolation and noise filtering, and usually deliver only half of their rated current.

You are free to buy a different phone. No lack of competition in this industry.