But in most cases, for most people, wires suck even more.
Seriously. I can't walk around my apartment to tidy it up while on an audio call on my computer if I'm wired. When I walked around the city with wired headphones to my phone, the wires would constantly snag or something or other. Wires are constantly getting tangled, or I have to spend time carefully rolling and clipping them and unclipping them and unrolling.
Wires suuuck. They suck baaad.
If I'm doing something professional with audio or AV where quality/latency are paramount, then sure I'll use wires and dongles as necessary. They're a "pro" thing.
But for everyday use? Wireless is still generally good enough, and the pros waaay outweight the cons. Which is why the world has been switching en masse.
I bought a pair of 190 Euro Sennheiser HD-25 II roughly 10 years ago. I had to swap my cable once in these 10 years which costed me 35 Euros (and the fact that after ten years you still can buy that cable speaks for itself).
In the same timeframe my girlfriend went through roundabout 400 Euros of cheapass (or just cheaply manufactured but overpriced) headphones and earplugs, both wired or bluetooth. Some lost, many broken etc.
And I nearly used my headphones everyday, in the subway, when jogging, as a DJ on the stage, for sound recording on film sets standing outside in winter during rain. I stepped on them more often than I am comfortable with.
Wired headphones aren't bad — shitty wired headphones are.
I completely agree. Wireless works for me 99% of the time, and it's really, really convenient.
I was a Bluetooth headphone holdout, but getting a set completely changed my working life. With wired headphones I'd forget they were in and pull half the stuff off my desk when I got up. The wires frequently broke. The absolute convenience of a pair of good Bluetooth headphones is totally worth the latency. It's not even that bad on my plantronics over ear headphones - certainly usable for calls and TV. They've been an absolute life saver for video calls when there's background noise.
It's a tradeoff. Like everything else, it depends.
I'm not wiring up my house for ethernet any time soon, I found a 5g band that performs well and can call it good.
But I've all but given up on wireless headphones. If I had a dollar for every time my airpods died or disconnected and refused to reconnect during a video call, I'd have enough dollars to buy new airpods now that their batteries are nearly shot. There's still a time and a place for them, but it mostly involves walking the dog.
It does frustrate me so much how wireless things can be finicky.
For example, my AirPods Pro worked flawlessly, except for about one month where they'd have a hard time switching between devices. But then it fixed itself.
Separately, AirDrop had always worked flawlessly between my Mac and iPhone and iPad, for years. Except two weeks ago it stopped working entirely between any of them. Tried rebooting everything, no help. Still won't work.
I've never gotten Sidecar to work, even though I meet all the requirements. On the other hand, my Bluetooth keyboard and mouse have always worked flawlessly every day I've ever used them.
It's all so random and luck of the draw... and you can never tell if the problem is because of Wi-Fi, or Bluetooth, or device software settings, or device hardware configuration, or settings on your Apple ID, or what.
But in most cases, for most people, wires suck even more.
Seriously. I can't walk around my apartment to tidy it up while on an audio call on my computer if I'm wired. When I walked around the city with wired headphones to my phone, the wires would constantly snag or something or other. Wires are constantly getting tangled, or I have to spend time carefully rolling and clipping them and unclipping them and unrolling.
Wires suuuck. They suck baaad.
If I'm doing something professional with audio or AV where quality/latency are paramount, then sure I'll use wires and dongles as necessary. They're a "pro" thing.
But for everyday use? Wireless is still generally good enough, and the pros waaay outweight the cons. Which is why the world has been switching en masse.