Well, I don't like the pushiness of it. Just take how this story dropped off the front page like a brick. If someone slapped me on the butt or head and said "hey there, you look like you really want some nice ice cream", even if I actually were up for ice cream, I would lose my currently existing appetite for ice cream until the memory of that creep has faded.
It doesn't matter if someone else accepts being treated that way, or didn't quite catch what is going on.
I also don't like how the general shift to selling experiences and status symbols instead of tools. The sheer inability to leave people alone and in peace with what works for them, just because it some marketing people have an idea how to get them to "engage" some more and buy more stuff. For example it's kinda nuts that laptops and smartphones are advertised with how thing they are, they're thin enough either way. In a context of humanity hardly even beginning to address the problems our consumerism caused, this is all just lethal circus. All that went on before the removal of the headphone jack, but that is part of it.
Since the Iraq war I avoid flying when I can, even before climate change became scary real, of course I'll avoid products of companies whose attitudes are incompatible with a rational marketplace. Because either that will end, or humanity will end. Just like I don't rely on a $0.50 chip, I don't rely on the "ideas" of equivalent thinkers, or the "awareness" of the mass of people.
> this had the best specs for what I wanted, so it was a sacrifice I would have to make
Well, to me that is entirely backwards. Customers are looking for something, but are denied that thing because companies have other "visions" for them. People find the story interesting and it garners a lot of votes quickly, so it is dropped to the second page just like that... Nothing spells "courage" like that kind of stuff. I just checked, just in the time it took me to write this it dropped from the middle of the second to the third page, but still managed to garner more votes. If the companies treat their fanbases as children and they end up acting like this on their behalf, flagging and downvoting what they don't want to hear, and/or if the companies themselves fuck with online discussions and the consumers look the other way, I'm against it by default either way, before we could possibly get to any technical details.
In short, there is a difference between a good reason for something, and a rationalization of something that was pushed onto you. Yes, I also use an external soundcard and like wireless headphones, but not for mobile devices, and the discussion isn't about "why did most people buy devices withouth headphone jacks once those became available too", this is about things being pushed unilaterally, for sheer profit.