Not OP, but a huge percentage of the no-name wireless earbuds I see are airpod knockoffs. Also, there were no successful true wireless earbuds before AirPods, just a couple of ones that launched a few months earlier to poor reviews.
The earpiece craze started long before. I remember my mono-audio Samsung earpiece that went into one ear and worked perfectly from a decade before Airpods. The samsung charged with a simple USB cable, too.
Technological limitations caused that to be shelved until much later.
Most people I know use only one airpod at a time. That applies to my two teens in highschool and a multitude of professionals I work with. The same people a decade earlier would just be using the Samsung mono ear pieces or the multitude of other ones that existed.
They are a bit of an improvement over some devices out there, but they are probably a downgrade from Bose bluetooth devices I have owned temporarily (I returned them to exchange for a wired buds pair).
I think you are giving Apple too much credit. I would say Airpods have good marketing and it is smart to give them away for free with their other products to create or perpetuate an illusion of popularity.