About 10 years ago I used headphones daily, now I do so just frequently enough that it's irritating to realize I need to purchase a dongle just to do so and go "well I guess I'm not listening to music/podcasts right now"

What I learned when working for a phone manufacturer is that the headphone jack usage varies by product segment. Cheaper phone users use the headphone jack far more frequently than premium phone users, so they'd keep it on the budget models but drop it on the higher end models. They also did similar with NFC and wireless charging which was interesting...