Perhaps. I'd be inclined to believe more if it wern't for Apple and Ive's focus on the beauty of their products at the expense of everything else, including usability. The article itself goes over a bunch of examples of this.

Strain relief is, or can be, somewhat ugly. More angles, thicker cables, varying widths - it all adds up to muddying the lines of their product.

Compared to how much they make on device sales - selling a few more adapters is peanuts. How many people do you know that have downright dangerous cables which they persist in using? I'm sure I know dozens.

It might not be one or the other. In a profit driven company, outcomes which result in a material benefit to the bottom line have an easy time being justified even if the justification used is not explicitly related to profit.

I had the same feeling about the evolution of the magsafe connector. The second generation, for which the cable ran parallel to the edge of the laptop where you plugged it in, was an upgrade in every way over its predecessor. The way it was constructed, and the forces you would typically put on it from day to day use made it much more robust than the T-shaped design.

But despite the obvious advantages, the next generation went back to the old design, but a little bit smaller, and back to all the old issues. I probably spent a few hundred dollars on replacement 3rd gen chargers alone, while the 2nd gen charger which came with my laptop is still in perfect working order in a box in my closet.

The cynical of me honestly wonders if they didn't see a decrease in peripheral revenue after the first iteration, and reverted to the old design only because of that.