I know they can still use the chip even if you don't want BT. I know they can still use it regardless of your desire to disable it. If there was no reasonable user demand for it, then it would be pretty hard to sell a useless piece of metal that only eats up energy and space in the phone.

You know, like an audio jack.

No other type of audio device saw the need to have the jack removed. The BT-only headphones were introduced by the same companies who removed the audio jack from the phones.

Nobody is "tricking" anyone. This is just as regular a shady business practice as false advertising. The companies doing this just weigh their options to maximize profits. This is a laughably easy sell, apparently, so it's reasonable they would be doing it. The complaints about this subject were loud from day one. Removing the jack is artificially limiting the features of the device for literally no plausible reason. Point to their material that explains it in more words than "we decided it's time".

We had the entire oil and tobacco industry lie to us for decades, but this is far fetched?