Do you actually use the dongle? It doesn't work with inline mics, making it useless even if you were to carry it around everywhere. It also doesn't work with previous iPhones, so you can't share say a car aux between an old and a new iPhone.
Is this a new thing? I haven't used this in a while, but the lightning dongle used to work fine with my headphones+mic (also intended for Apple's headphone jack). I know there's some difference in how the headphone connector is set up between Apple and everyone else though.
I'm pretty sure the commenter is misinformed. The dongle worked with the inline mic on my B&O headphones. But it wasn't worth engaging with that point because I think they're wrong even if the dongle doesn't work perfectly for them.
I use the dongle, fwiw. It stays attached to my "good" wired earphones.
I don't really have any strong feelings either way about it. I dropped my phone once, and the dongle took the brunt of it (saving the expensive stuff) but I did have to buy another.
I used the dongle. I left it permanently attached to my headphone cable, and it was a non-issue to “carry it everywhere.” Needing a wired inline mic is a niche of niche, making the argument about antitrust monopoly even weaker.
Wireless headphones are a better experience is basically every way, and yes microphones on phones aren’t a niche which is why every phone has one. Totally unrelated to wired inline external microphones, though.
If you're taking a call on a phone with headphones, you need an mic on the headphones for anyone to hear you. There were several years you had the option of using BT headphones while the iPhone had both BT and the jack, but you were using the jack.
