In certain circles it's assumed that people buy a new phone every year. Then they make 30 minute Youtube videos lambasting Apple about "incremental upgrades" and "zero innovation"

While also not getting that they're NOT the target market.

For the person whose iPhone finally (after half a decade or more) falls out of major version support a 5-6 generation jump on hardware is amazing.

They are the target market.

Certain part of apple customer culture seems to be peculiar, a lot(?) of traditional customers seem to care a lot about "redesigns", partly because they want every time to get the new shiny thing anyway. Having started using anything apple only after apple silicon, it feels weird seeing these takes in forums. For reviewers it makes sense, as they need things to talk about, but I don't get this for other customers, esp since for me and many people "redesigns" for the sake of redesigning are typically hated except if they are actually addressing actual practical or aesthetic issues. Eg the touchpad thing was indeed horrible and many people hate it for a reason, but redesign requests are not limited to actual things people do not like. I don't think I have seen this as much for other companies and I do not get why they care (maybe they are just bored?).

I think some people see having an older generation iPhone as sending a signal of "I’m poor", a status thing. Pretty ugly thing, but the act of buying iPhones on credit happens too often.