Won’t that degenerate the battery at a much quicker rate?

No, why would it? The phone always charges as fast as it wants to, so it doesn't really matter if you connect it to a 20W or a 240W power supply.

All quick charge approaches do this. You'll buy a new one faster.

USB-C controllers negotiate the correct voltage and amperage.

Right...but before they were happy they were complaining about the awful EU (and they still are).

Here's John Gruber (who I like a lot, but you know when his Apple blinders are blinding him).

https://daringfireball.net/linked/2021/09/23/eu-usbc-mandate

And now they're complaining about the EU requiring Apple to open up iOS like the Mac, and they are pushing back against that.

It's the regulatory version of how everything sucked until Apple did it (so multi-tasking on phones is awful, until Apple decided that actually now it's ok and now Stage Manager is the best thing since sliced bread).

Who is "they". You are lumping millions of people into a single group and treating it like there is one opinion.

The people who complained about one thing isn't even necessarily the same group complaining about the other.

It's perfectly reasonable to like the present outcome without liking the methods or the road taken to get there. I, for one, expect the regulation to stifle innovation in a few years. USB-C isn't perfect, and moving off it will probably be difficult.

You could already do this before the port change, you just need a USB-C to Lightning cable (which has been included in the box for a few years now). Being able to use the same cable is nice and all, but in practice I want two or more cables anyway to charge multiple devices at the same time. If one of those cables happens to have a different connector on one end it isn't the end of the world.

being able to charge my phone after leaving the plug at the airport (like a dumbass) because i had my laptop charger was really convenient for me