You mean it will benefit Apple’s customers, who prefer headphones not made by Apple? If only the incentive for Apple to improve their interface was that its paying customers will have a better interface.
Taking a further step back, this same group of HN users probably understands the straightforward idea that what’s good for Bay Area tech companies is beneficial to them in a much broader sense, since they’re generally employed by them or by a very small group of other companies closely related to them.
You can accuse them of being greedy, selfish, or whatever, but certainly not that they’re unaware of where their interests lie.
I exclusively use non Apple headphones and I have no issues. I had AirPods for a while and I don’t remember them being better.
It's mostly gimicky, but it does give the user the impression that the apple Air pods are higher quality because they have all these things thought out. In actuality, Apple just made it so they're the only ones who can do that.