What is a nifty little feature modern gadgets have lost?

There are often enterprise versions that still have it. Like the S10E for example.

Yes, and I'm thinking my next phone will be one of those.

I have a much better time with wired earbuds than with bluetooth.
- Forgot my bluetooth headphones the other day on a long trip and the 3.5mm jack saved my rear end.
  
  Just needed to stop at a shop briefly for some cheap plug-in buds and I was no longer listening to babies screaming on the journey. As a bonus, it also didn't interfere with me charging my phone
  
  I'd like bluetooth earbuds a lot more if I could find some that aren't "smart." If I put on a beanie, I bump them. If I remove one earbud to converse, I bump it. I've not once intentionally used a gesture-based control on an earbud for anything else other than undoing the situation I've caused by bumping them. Otherwise, I control everything with my phone. If I'm working out, I just select my playlist, mute notifications, and I don't have to touch anything after that. Gesture-based earbuds are not for me.
  
  I really don't think there are dumb bluetooth earbuds, though. At least, I haven't been able to find any.
  
  I have the Samsung Galaxy Buds Plus and their app has an option to disable touches, so that's what I do, because I'm the same as you. I bought them used and have been using them on a daily basis for at least three years and they're still working well. Might be something to look into. I hope you find something that works for you!
  
  Oh, that sounds promising! I'll look into it, thanks.
  
  I have a pair of cheap Skullcandy's that have physical buttons instead of touch sensors. The buttons are basically impossible to use without smooshing the earbud into your ear trying to click it, but it also means it's really hard to accidentally click them. Probably as close as you can get to dumb Bluetooth earbuds.
  
  I don't even understand why someone would want controls on their earbuds, much less for it to be such a widespread issue, but honestly I'm just going to make sure my next phone has a 3.5mm jack
  
  Could always get one of the beanies that have bluetooth speakers in 'em. It'll solve your problem of bumping your earbuds, (though not through a necessarily "good" option). Or, you could use the wired bluetooth headphones like these.
  
  As another alternative, there's the apple airpods, which, as far as I can tell, have not gestures but some weird-ass pseudo capacitive button that makes a sound when you press them. I did just realize though, that if you have an apple device they'll automatically pause playback when you take a headphone out (I think), so that may not be your cup of tea. However, if you have an Android, this addition won't work unless you have an app like CAPods (which you can turn on or off in the app, so no worries there). There's also the downside of not having access to many features like toggling through the different modes (active noise canceling or whatever other bullshit like that), not being able to natively see the battery of the case or earbuds (though, like with the aforementioned feature, using an app like CAPods you can see it), and some others that I can't recall at the moment.
  
  Sorry about the length of this reply, I was originally just going to mention the bluetooth beanies as a joke, but I have nothing else to do at the moment, so why not share my experiences? Anywho, that's my two cents, this could help, it could be utterly useless, you could already know all of this, you may not even read the wall of text, etc. etc.. Do as you will with this.
  
  You don't happen to know if there's some open-source software for Android that might be similar to CAPods? Tbh I'm probably never going to buy either airpods or the brand-name Samsung ones, but I'd imagine there might be a more universal solution?
  
  Yeah, I don't actually recommend buying airpods unless you got them for free if you're an Android user (that's the only reason I'm using airpods atm).
  
  As to open source, I believe CAPods is, unless you're referring to an open source app for most headphones (which upon second thought you probably are).
  
  As to that question, CAPods, according to their GitHub page, supports a few Beats devices, this app for Galaxy Buds on Windows/Linux devices, and this one for Huawei Freebuds device(s?).
  
  Overall, the closest I could find was GadgetBridge, which has support (partial or full) for a few Samsung devices, one Nothing, a few Sony, and Bose(?), though, I did keep running into internal server errors, so it might be out of date.
  
  That's a good link though. Maybe I can get some cheap used beats or airpods.
  
  New ones are too expensive though, ya
I've had an S10E for a while and didn't even know the headphone jacks are no longer the norm!
- Clinging to my S9+ so hard.
  
  I was lucky i found this store that sells second hand devices from big companies that have bought too many? ( dunno how it actually works), but the quality is sometimes fully new, or have been used briefly; much cheaper and older models like my S10E, which I think it's from 2018.
  
  I tend to break phones rather often unfortunately (very clumsy, small hands and lack of pockets) so I want to have something like this still available. I do use screen and case protectors and all that. It still lands on the floor quite often :/
Not really, it's mostly only budget phones that have it nowadays. The S10E(which stands for 'essential' btw, not 'enterprise') is almost 5 years old, not exactly representative of the modern phone market.
- To be fair, on the modern phone market it doesn't really matter whether you spend 300 or 1000. They're all decent ish

This going away has just make the Tiktok tide that much more horrendous. I work in a school. The hallways are nothing but that horrid shit blasting out of hundreds of bad speakers.

You don't think it'd still be the same even with the headphone jack still there? Wireless headphones and converters for wired headphones do exist, they just don't care.
My condolences. I stress out the moment a child thrusts a phone in front of me to watch a "funny" video

I can only imagine the hellscape that is your school

People keep going on about that and I get it from the point of not having to charge headphones all the time. But to me that is a very mild inconvenience compared to having to deal with those fucking cables all the time. I hate cables so damn much.

Here's the crazy thing tho... You could just not use it and choose to use blue tooth still.
- I'm not saying there shouldn't be a port, just saying that I really don't see the value.
Oh, my problem isn't with charging them. They actually hold a charge for a super long time.

I’d like bluetooth earbuds a lot more if I could find some that aren’t “smart.” If I put on a beanie, I bump them. If I remove one earbud to converse, I bump it. I’ve not once intentionally used a gesture-based control on an earbud for anything else other than undoing the situation I’ve caused by bumping them. Otherwise, I control everything with my phone. If I’m working out, I just select my playlist, mute notifications, and I don’t have to touch anything after that. Gesture-based earbuds are not for me.

I really don’t think there are dumb bluetooth earbuds, though. At least, I haven’t been able to find any.

And I don't mind cables as much as you do. I think my favorite earbuds would be those that are connected to each other by a cable, but again -- only if they were not smart.
- You can turn off the touch controls on Samsung Galaxy Bud Pros, maybe the other galaxy bud models too
  
  For most of these, turning off touch controls means that when you accidentally trigger the touch commands, it plays a little jingle and pushes a notification telling you that youve disabled touch controls and you need to reenable them.
  
  Completely defeating the fucking point of turning off touch controls, and making me want to wrap my hands around the throat of the idiot who designed that
  
  On my buds if I turn on "block touches" and I touch them nothing happens, no jingle or notification. But yeah that does sound like a stupid feature
  
  I'll look into it. The only bluetooth earbuds I currently have are an off brand called SYNRGY. Maybe there's some setting that I'm not aware of to disable touch controls too. I've also considered applying a few coats of clear nail polish. Maybe that would work?
  
  I actually don't know anyone who has the official Samsung ones.
- This might sound crazy but apple earbuds would be good for you. I actually like having pause and skip buttons, and apparently these do have controls when you touch them, but that's never worked for me. I think it's intentionally broken on android which in your case makes them good.
  
  They're grossly overpriced, though. I'd never buy them.
  
  You can get them used thanks to apple fanboys inherent need to get the newest version. There's lots out there due to that. But I get it if you don't like the idea of used headphones.
  
  I don't mind, actually. Rubbing alcohol covers a multitude of evils.
  
  I'll look into it.
- Not sure what brand you have but mine you can turn off the functions on the buttons in the app.
  
  Which app? I usually use YouTube or Spotify. I doubt I need a dedicated app for earbuds.
  
  The brand is Jabra, they have an app associated with them where you can change various settings on how the earbuds work. One of them is what the buttons do.
For me I'm just very attached to my earphones. I had tried out different earphones for a long time when I was younger before I discovered these and I've been using them for over 8 years now. I don't really want to switch to a different pair of earphones.
It's more than just having to charge them I wouldn't even really consider that much of a downside with how long they last. I haven't yet ran out of charge before I was ready to take mine out. The actual downsides are- Wireless earbuds are expensive. The batteries in them wear out over time and you have to buy all new ones which is wasteful. Bluetooth adds a noticeable delay that sucks when watching video. My car doesn't have bluetooth so I need a headphone jack for AUX. I have both and like wireless ones when I'm on the go but if I'm stationary wired don't cause any problems.

The newest Asus zenfone is still rocking it!

My Note 9 still has it!

WAVES OLD MAN CANE AROUND THREATENINGLY

First smartphone I had is still my favorite. Motorola Droid. I still have it!

The battery life is hell, though

HTC just came out with a phone that has a headphone jack AND expandable memory. I hope they go for a gen 2 in the near future since it had some kinks to work out, such as a curved glass screen, becase then it would be just about everything I could ask for in a phone.

Get a dongle. Get several. Stick them on the ends of all your headphones and aux cables and forget that you don't have a headphone jack on your phone.

I do have one. That's how I listen to music in my old ass car XD

But still I wish they'd just never removed something that was so useful and immediately accessible to everyone
I have like 5. It still doesn't make it less inconvenient. I use my earphones for my laptop for work and my phone when I'm commuting so I have to attach the dongle, plug it into my phone, get to work, unplug the dongle plug it in the laptop and do the whole process again when I go home and repeat every day. It's a pain. Not to mention the occasional times where you want to charge your phone while you're listening to music.
- Oh that charging thing is a major pain when we have to take a roadtrip. Whoever came up with the cloaca design for phones really did not think things through.
  
  I believe they sell splitters but they are harder to find and larger.