There is physical connections between devices. The pins that make electrical contact. There are 24 on UsbC and 8 on lightning making a lot more things possible.
Also there are structural benifits. Lightning connectors are held in by the device which makes replacing the clamp a lot more difficult than just switching the cable like UsbC, where that mechanism is inside the cable.
And last but not least is Usb an open protocol while you would have to pay Apple if you wanted to implement Lightning.
No, if the clamp-mechanism breaks, you habe to replace the connector on the phone while with UsbC you only have to use a different cable.