I just switched to an iphone recently and the brick would have been a non issue for me. I already have a bunch of USB C bricks from my android phones going back to the Nexus 5X

Exactly. I don't understand why nobody mentions this, but the decision to ship a USB-C to lightning cable makes a lot of sense when you think about customer segments:

- People who are upgrading an old iphone will still have a USB-A to lightning cable from their old phone, so they can charge their new iphone using their old charger and old cable

- People upgrading from android probably already have a USB-C charger, so they can use the bundled USB-C to lighting cable to charge their new iphone

- People who want to buy a new USB-C charger can do so without also needing to buy a lightning cable to go with it. (The charger can also be used for charging an ipad or magsafe puck, so it makes sense not to include a cable with the charger.)

In short, by including the USB-C to lightning cable, almost everyone who buys an iphone 12 won't need any new accessories with their new phone. (Unless you want faster charging or wireless charging and don't have other USB-C bricks floating around.)