I got my dad one, he was still on his 5s. $200 refurbished with a new battery. Best budget deal for an iPhone if you ask me, and the A13 outclasses the SoCs you get in Androids at this price point (but they have better battery and screen in return).

This exactly. The seller (Apple) is responsible to fulfill their contract, i.e. delivering the products. If they deliver themselves or hire a third party to do so is their responsibility. If they have chosen Uber, and Uber is not reliable, that is Apple's problem.

1st, I am not seeing thousands of articles. Where are they?

2nd, Apple sells more than 100,000,000 iPhones each year. A small percentage of any consumer electronic product is always defective, no matter which brand or manufacturer. Companies selling more units will also have more defective units, naturally. Having a working iPhone is not news, nobody posts about it.

For an actual discussion, you should have provided some specific problem you have. "Nothing works and this thing is complete trash" is not a starting point for a discussion, especially when there are millions of units sold to happy customers.