They can’t give them away - that’s a really bad business move. Taking $50 off the cost of a replacement battery is pretty good.
What I find quite ironic about this is that they were actually trying to help people get more life out of their older phones and everyone is complaining about it. If they did nothing and everyone’s old iPhones were still running slow and randomly shutting down, everyone would be complaining.
They can’t win!
29 dollars is not bad but people are upset because they didn't know.