If i see someone wearing AirPods or headphones my initial reaction is they don’t want to be talked to or interacted with. Even if that’s not true and they have passive throughput.
Whereas I can see myself wearing a hearing aid (and probably need one) because people will recognize that I'm not trying to shut them out but I may have difficulty hearing.
> you have a type of (casual) plausible deniability about why you're wearing them
"He doesnt even give enough of a shit about talking to me to remove his earbuds" isn't a good thing.
> They won't draw people's attention in the way that hearing aids (because they're different/unique) do.
They won't draw peoples attention in the same way because normal humans only begrudgingly interact with people wearing earbuds in conversations and only for a bare minimum.
I really can't stand this website sometimes. But at least you all got the AirPods™ branding right instead of just calling them earbuds.