Sounds like a perfectly valid strategy to me. You can create a longer lasting battery by investing in R&D or spending more on the battery itself.
No consumer is buying batteries by looking at what technology was used to create it. They're buying it for X range, X recharge cycles, for X dollars. Those are all of the variables. So giving them more recharge cycles for the same money IS better.
This is exactly the way the SSD market works btw.. in fact its worse, because the largest manufacturers are actively investing money to make shorter life (but denser MB/area) cells (SLC > MLC > TLC), while building more spare capacity into each drive to meet their reliability targets.
No consumer is buying batteries by looking at what technology was used to create it. They're buying it for X range, X recharge cycles, for X dollars. Those are all of the variables. So giving them more recharge cycles for the same money IS better.
This is exactly the way the SSD market works btw.. in fact its worse, because the largest manufacturers are actively investing money to make shorter life (but denser MB/area) cells (SLC > MLC > TLC), while building more spare capacity into each drive to meet their reliability targets.
Without it, SSDs wouldn't even exist.