Anyone defending the Lightning connector is an insane fanboy person and you won't change my mind. On a Lightning cable the metal pins are exposed to the elements and prone to dirt and execessive wear. USB-C is completely internal and protected. The End.
Its not quite The End since that's only one element, and excessive
uneven wear on Lightning isn't due to exposed connectors but the engineering of the connector itself.
It's true that C is ultimately a better engineered connector than Lightning, intended for actually mass usage. The looser
apparent tolerances to the user in terms of wiggle are also part of that engineering. I think the fact that there is a stated MTBF for C and none for Lightning leads many (the sort of people that the overwhelming majority of Apple users tend to be, i.e. ultimately ignorant in the field yet very certain of their "intuitive" opinions due to their focus on how something looks and feels) to make the wrong assumption that C is more delicate, when the real problem is often really QA at the random Chinese purveyor of crap that you'll turn to for anything generic.
It's also true that Lightning is a more Tech Karen-friendly connector. That's actually it's entire genesis over and above Micro USB. It *feels* more solid and it pioneered reversible connectors at the phone scale, regardless of how ultimately kinda 💩 the engineering for it is. And that ties back into the Apple user comment above.
The fact that the majority of said crap that's churned out with barely any QA is actually capable of working 20 times faster than Lightning and usually has better strain relief is the more astounding bit, IMO.
