This was common for kids in the 00s. Having just one bud in while talking to someone was common. There was also this type that instead of having two equal length wires, one to each bud, was asymmetrical and you would wrap the longer wire around you neck so you could easily "unbud". Sony invented this, I think. In fact there were some pretty crazy designs before Apple made the simple but conspicuous earbuds popular again.

I can leave my phone on the charger or propped up with a recipe on the counter while I cook and still get signal. Wired headphones cannot let me walk between rooms without picking up my phone.

Wireless headphones take up much less space. I can put them in my pocket trivially.

Wireless headphones can tell me where they are and if I've left them behind.

Wireless headphones don't have a piece of plastic that dangles on my neck, shoulders, and face. As someone with sensory issues, this is genuinely important.

I've never had to spend five minutes untangling the cords for my wireless headphones.

I've never accidentally snagged the cable on my wireless headphones, causing them to snap off.

I can put my phone in a waterproof case in my backpack and protect it while walking. I don't have to do cable management to route the wire.

It's fine to prefer the wired headphones. I fully endorse that for you. Maybe drop the hyperbole about how wired headphones are strictly better?

It's weird, because I absolutely agree in principle, but 90% of my headphone use is wireless now.

And I hate it: latency, glitches, randomly just deciding not to connect anymore, deciding to connect in the lower-quality headset mode when I want to listen to music, and refusing to switch to the high-quality mode, battery running out at inconvenient times, the cat knocking them off my nightstand and under the bed where I cant reach them. So many reasons to be annoyed by them!

But I hardly ever take out my wired headphones anymore, and I'm not sure why. Back when I got my first phone without a 3.5mm jack, I just kept a little USB-C adapter in the little pouch/case that held my wired IEMs, and it was fine. But at some point I bought a new phone, and there was a deal on cheap (or free?) wireless earbuds with it, and I really just stopped using wired headphones for the most part since then, even though the wireless ones really annoy me for so many reasons.

For me, all of my wired headphones and earbuds have died the same way: audio cutting out or completely lost due to cable damage due to storage and use cycles. Wireless has completely fixed this for me.

Wireless is more comfortable. I don't have to deal with cables brushing against my ears or sitting on my neck.

Wireless can't get caught on doorknobs or other protrusions.

I don't have to plug them in. I put them in my ears and they work.

They automatically work with multiple devices. I put them in and make a phone call. I put them in and take a video meeting on my computer.

There certainly are advantages to wired headphones and more power to you if you prefer those tradeoffs. But it's bizarre to call wireless "strictly inferior." It should not be difficult to find at least one thing about them that someone might find to be superior.

I got myself a plastic welder - the thing that melts little pieces of metal to strengthen plastic joints - now I can keep old plastic things in shape almost indefinitely. Cost like 10 usd or so and has prolonged the life of all manner of things.

If you still want to make the old headphones work these welders are a godsend, and with some small amount of diy work of cleaning, sanding and buffing you can easily hide these welds.

I personally like to leave them though since they accent that something that was once broken is whole again, and that it has a long history!

For whatever reason, in my experience, the 1st gen Airpods Pro seem to pair much more easily to non-Apple devices than the 2nd gen. I have a 1st gen pair more or less dedicated to my Linux PC, and they auto-pair 99% of the time within a few seconds.

Have you ever tried bluetooth wearables like the Bose SoundWear? Off topic but they are awesome

Headphone jacks.

Sony experia, Asus zenphone, Motorola Moto G, and a few others

They're rare nowadays, but they're inherently superior when it comes to audio just working