Well the biggest reason is because there are a much larger amount of people and law makers who would prefer simply stopping at cord compatibility, and cord compatibility is much easier to implement, and much less disruptive, than more extreme and absurd examples.
Society does not have to do the most extreme thing possible, in every situation.
Instead, society can pick and choose. We can look for easy wins, and do the things that are easy to implement and not do the things that are harder to implement.
In fact, apple is already planning on adding USB C to the next iPhone, if the rumors are true. So it sounds like even they agree that cord compatibility is at least possible for them to do with a reasonable effort.
So they help prevent e waste by preventing people from throwing away cords instead of helping people not to have to throw away phones.
Government at its best.
Next they are going to mandate pop up warnings every time I turn on my phone like the cookie banners.
I doubt people are complaining more about cord compatibility than having to replace an entire functioning phone because it no longer receives even security updates. Let alone operating system updates.
