Let’s Break the Wheel of Tech as Fashion

Anyone who knows me knows that I’m easy prey to the sharp teeth of fashion. I was that idiot who would get the Tennessee Stack or Miami Sunshine burger during their limited edition runs at McDonalds in the early-00s. I am the idiot who is subscribed to Beer52 because I hear them advertise on a thousand podcasts, and haven’t unsubscribed due to my crippling inertia. And I am the idiot who is writing this blog on a shitty decade-old MacBook because I am committed to owning Apple products, even though I can’t really afford them.

Which might make it a surprise that I didn’t get onboard with AirPods. For new initiates to this blog, I’m a podcast producer, so I work predominantly in the audio medium. And when the first generation of Apple’s signature wireless headphones were released in the chilly winter days of 2016, they took the world by storm. It was all the easy functionality of Bluetooth headphones, wrapped in Apple’s slick design. The seamless integration with iPhone — the world’s most important smartphone — also helped. Setting them up was as complicated as opening, quite literally, a box.

I didn’t go for them for two reasons. Firstly, the price point. At $159, they struck me as extremely pricey in-ear headphones. And, as previously mentioned, I am too much of a church mouse to acquire one of the models of iPhone with which they were included as…