So, while this is kind of true, and I totally support having headphone jacks in phones (I'm on a Pixel 4a) this post lacks many details and "alternatives".

Modern phones might have wireless charging - so charging while listening is possible even with a dongle.

There are USB-C only headphones - so not always a dongle is required.

There are (overear) Bluetooth headphones that support charging while listening

> The headphone jack is a “just works” kind of technology: there’s nothing complicated about it, and its not encumbered by patents, so anybody can make compatible equipment.

Oh boy did Apple have success using a proprietary chip for their volume control in EarPods[1] and preventing others except 1more from supporting it.

Although proprietary I just love the support oft TRRS driven playback control Apple introduced (play, Pause, rewind etc). Android also supports this these days, although not AS good.

I even submitted a PR[2] to audiobookshelf to support Apple like headset controls, but it has not been merged yet.

I still use an iPod Nano 7g to listen to audio books until today :-)

1: https://tinymicros.com/wiki/Apple_iPod_Remote_Protocol

2: https://github.com/advplyr/audiobookshelf-app/pull/1218