Apple will likely sell tens of millions of AirPods this year. At $159 each, and presumably at very healthy margins.
This is no small business, even by Apple's standards!
Removing the headphone jack was a marketing-driven decision. AirPods are a cool product, but wouldn't have sold anywhere near as well without the forcing effect of the jack removal.
This guy managed to install a fully-functioning jack back into an iPhone 7:
How many fewer AirPods do you think they would sell of the iPhone 7 still had a headphone jack? Given that every iphone 7 came with lightning EarPods and a lightning to headphone jack adapter, I would guess that AirPods sales would barely have been affected.
This is laughably false. Accessories are a tiny percentage of Apple's revenue.