How is a cheap adaptor for your legacy headphones any more annoying than literally being tethered by a cable attached to your head connected to an object in your pocket? You ask what the benefit is as a consumer. Simple: not having a cable wired around your body. You’re championing an out dated, superfluous connector just ‘cause you’re used to its objective inconvenience.
Counterpoint: products having to maintain a wide array of specialized connectors where one connector can perform every needed task is bad for the consumer as they are then required to own the specialized products for those specific connectors. Full stop. No one seems to be bothered by the fact that computers no longer have PS/2 ports for mice and keyboards. Oh but “loo loo loo now I have to get a new mouse when I have a perfectly good one here!” It’s been nearly a decade since 1/8th inch jacks were depreciated from mobile devices. Just get some wireless headphones, or some usb-c / lightning wired headphones.
Yeah! I want my PS2 and my 15 pin D-Sub connections so I can use my trackball mouse and CRT monitor with my phone. Giving me those options doesn’t take anything away from anyone else!
the consumer as they are then required to own the specialized products for those specific connectors
No they’re fucking not. If you want to use USB-C or wireless you still can in a phone that still allows perfectly functioning headphones/hardware to operate.
In fact on the opposite it’s removing the connectors that forces people to either get adapters or new shit, which is exactly why companies remove them: so they can sell you those shits for profit. They don’t do it for your or anyone’s convenience in fact it’s inconvenient and unsustainable.
As a consumer, I could already use wireless headphones when phones still had headphones jacks. As a consumer I had the choice if I wanted to be inconvenienced by a cable, or inconvenienced by having yet another thing to charge that is easy to lose.
And you have the absolute wrong take here. Nobody in this argument has ever said we only want the ability to use wired. We absolutely understand the convenience of wireless headphones. But by removing the jack, the option to choose was removed.
You are championing essentially making perfectly good headphones obsolete or requiring extra adapters in favor of something that we already had the option to use before anyways.
This has never been a situation where only one could exist at a time.
I used wireless headphones for a while, then went back to wired because:
wireless headphones cost a lot more and break more easily. Ain’t no way a 70€ wireless crap that breaks after 1 or 2 years better than the years old wired ones that still work.
“Battery low! Charge the unit now!” Is not what I want to hear coming from my headphones during a long day out walking/biking
the audio quality is significantly better on wired than wireless
the wireless ones can be lost easily
The only real advantage wireless has over wire is not having to have your phone on you and the wire getting stuck in stuff. But for the first case you still have to be fairly close and the occasions when I don’t have my phone in my pocket are too rare to bother and the second case I just tuck the cable under my clothes or backpacks strap if I am really worried about that minor inconvenience.
The only complaint I have about my current wired headphones is that they use USB-C instead of the jack and it annoys me because I then have to choose between charging my phone or listening to stuff instead of doing both. Or use them for my laptop.
How is a cheap adaptor for your legacy headphones any more annoying than literally being tethered by a cable attached to your head connected to an object in your pocket? You ask what the benefit is as a consumer. Simple: not having a cable wired around your body. You’re championing an out dated, superfluous connector just ‘cause you’re used to its objective inconvenience.
You can still use wireless even if other people use wired. Less options is worse for the consumer, full stop.
Counterpoint: products having to maintain a wide array of specialized connectors where one connector can perform every needed task is bad for the consumer as they are then required to own the specialized products for those specific connectors. Full stop. No one seems to be bothered by the fact that computers no longer have PS/2 ports for mice and keyboards. Oh but “loo loo loo now I have to get a new mouse when I have a perfectly good one here!” It’s been nearly a decade since 1/8th inch jacks were depreciated from mobile devices. Just get some wireless headphones, or some usb-c / lightning wired headphones.
Yeah! I want my PS2 and my 15 pin D-Sub connections so I can use my trackball mouse and CRT monitor with my phone. Giving me those options doesn’t take anything away from anyone else!
No they’re fucking not. If you want to use USB-C or wireless you still can in a phone that still allows perfectly functioning headphones/hardware to operate.
In fact on the opposite it’s removing the connectors that forces people to either get adapters or new shit, which is exactly why companies remove them: so they can sell you those shits for profit. They don’t do it for your or anyone’s convenience in fact it’s inconvenient and unsustainable.
As a consumer, I could already use wireless headphones when phones still had headphones jacks. As a consumer I had the choice if I wanted to be inconvenienced by a cable, or inconvenienced by having yet another thing to charge that is easy to lose.
And you have the absolute wrong take here. Nobody in this argument has ever said we only want the ability to use wired. We absolutely understand the convenience of wireless headphones. But by removing the jack, the option to choose was removed.
You are championing essentially making perfectly good headphones obsolete or requiring extra adapters in favor of something that we already had the option to use before anyways.
This has never been a situation where only one could exist at a time.
I used wireless headphones for a while, then went back to wired because:
The only real advantage wireless has over wire is not having to have your phone on you and the wire getting stuck in stuff. But for the first case you still have to be fairly close and the occasions when I don’t have my phone in my pocket are too rare to bother and the second case I just tuck the cable under my clothes or backpacks strap if I am really worried about that minor inconvenience.
The only complaint I have about my current wired headphones is that they use USB-C instead of the jack and it annoys me because I then have to choose between charging my phone or listening to stuff instead of doing both. Or use them for my laptop.