You didn't understand this sentence: "Simply buying a new cable does nothing to fix that because the springs are in the phone." With Lightning, the springs are in the phone. With USB-C, the springs are in the cable. Springs are a moving part, and thus especially vulnerable to wear. Replacing a cable is cheaper than replacing a phone.
I did. The springs wearing out very much means bad contact at the contact points, we do agree there. However the receiver end with gold plated contacts points do also wear out. I’ve yet to see anything pointing towards springs wearing out before the gold plated areas (that is being worn by friction each insertion/removal) do.
I’ve got a Lightning cable with worn out gold plated contact points, the springs in the phone are perfectly fine.
My point being that without some reliable statistics pointing to springs being way more susceptible to wear than gold plated contact points, it doesn’t make any difference.
(FWIW: I currently work with factory equipment for PCB production testing and bad contact due to oxidation and wear is a much bigger issue than springs going bad, but that’s just my experience.)