Steph Curry is wearing them. Bella Hadid has a pair tucked in her pocket. It is 2026 and the world has suddenly remembered the cable.
I haven’t cared about the fashion trend. Nostalgia plays its part, sure. But I liked the wire long before influencers decided it was a rebellious statement against “anti-tech tech.” They will move on. I will not.
Practicality is the only metric that matters to me. Nothing beats a copper connection.
Iconic Then Obsolete
The 2000s were wired. MP3 players defined a decade. The white silhouette ads weren’t just marketing—they were culture. People grooved to their playlists with cables bouncing against their shirts. It was integral to the experience.
Then came 2016.
Apple summoned what it called “courage” and removed the headphone jack from the iPhone. The pitch? Waterproofing. A future unbound by wires. In reality. A forced upgrade path. You wanted sound without buying the dongle? You bought AirPods.
$160. For earbuds that paired. Sometimes.
I kept my iPod Touch. The 3.5mm jack remained a sanctuary. Apple’s basic wired earbids were $20. No latency. No Bluetooth handshake rituals. Just music.
Did the wire tangle in my pocket? Often. Was that worse than losing $20 into a storm drain before I even unboxed my “smart” earbuds? The memes predicted this immediately.
There is one benefit of wire that no marketing department can manufacture.
You don’t charge it.
Ever.
Plug it in. It works. Infinite battery. We traded reliability for the joy of anxiety. Do we hate cables that much?
The Battery Tax
Try this scenario.
Your phone is at 4%. You are traveling home. No charger nearby. Your laptop is dead weight in your bag. You board a flight, realizing too late your Switch needs power.
Then there is the earbuds check. One earbud has 15% left. The other is dead. Silence on one side.
In the presmartphone era, devices had jobs. Cameras took photos. Phones made calls. Music players played music. You charged each one separately. Today. We carry one brick for everything. Plus a watch. A ring. Glasses. An AI pin that listens to you sleep.
Each gadget demands energy. Why add another device to the charging ritual?
Wireless earbuds are flawed by design. Each unit contains its own lithium-ion battery. These cells degrade. Like all batteries. The two sides of the pair age differently. One fails first. Always.
Want to fix it? Good luck. AirPods are sealed with glue. No screws. No ports. Disassembling them destroys them. Most wireless buds are single-use units. When one side dies, you throw the pair away and spend $150 again.
Wired earbuds have no such expiry date.
Good Enough is Better
When Apple removed the jack, I panicked. Not about sound quality. About the dongle. Who carries a plastic stick?
The market corrected. Apple now sells Lightning and USB-C wired options. They are affordable. They function identically to the old 3.5mm versions. No lag. No dropouts.
Wireless has its place. Pairing with a smartwatch while benching presses makes sense. Freedom of movement has value. But for sitting down and listening? For podcasts and albums that shouldn’t stutter?
The wire is superior.
It does not require charging. It cannot fall down a drain separately. It costs $20 instead of $200. The trend is silly. The technology is not.
Infinite battery life.
Maybe the trend fades. Maybe the celebrities swap wires for haptic bone-conduction necklaces next month. I won’t be joining them. I will plug in.
