Excuse me? That derogatory tongue-in-cheek way of referring to that company is not "mealy mouthed nerdery", as everyone and their mother understands who I am referring to. The lawsuit mitigation communication I suspect you're confusing it for requires it to be genuinely unclear who you mean.

However, batteries cannot cost $1 unless you want $1 worth of battery. Modern batteries are genuinely complex devices with extremely tight assembly tolerances, and something like a phone battery should be expected to be more like 10-40 USD.

Cheapo cells exist, but they genuinely have issues like poor assembly tolerances introducing risks of it deciding to spontaneously transform into a pocket-sized smoke machine.