[ashtonkem]

> But headphones don't get worse just by the passage of time.

They didn't when they were just speakers on a strap, but that is a bad mental model for thinking about modern wireless headphones. Remember that a lot of these headphones now have CPUs in them, and they're integrating into a moving spec. The iPhone 6 mentioned here only supported Bluetooth 4, while the iPhone 12 supports Bluetooth 5.0, plus some other addons like LE and A2DP. And that's before we consider any protocols that manufacturers add on top of that, like Airplay.

Even Airpods aren't "fire and forget" devices nowadays. Apple is still shipping firmware updates for Airpods. It's fair to say that long term support for these will be much less costly than an old iPhone, but it's not free.

> Also, why not make it so that they can be used passively? What's the downside?

The simplest answer is probably "Apple customers don't want it". If you really care about using your headphones passively with a wire 20 years from now when the battery is dead and Apple won't service it, you were pretty unlikely to be buying Apple anyways. There are tons of available headphones on the market to serve that set of requirements. And since Apple really values clean lines, removing a jack that they don't think many of their customers will use is a no-brainer for them.

[dsr_]

That sums up to:

"Your wired headphones are reliable mechanical-electrical devices. Apple is making a computer that you wear on your head, and it just can't compete in areas like reliability, repairability, and Apple's profitability."

[fastball]

I mean, yeah, sure.

Google Glass also aren’t as reliable as my reading glasses, but here we are.

[ashtonkem]

Yup!