Because they can remove a small 10 cent component and sell you disposable 200€ headphones wich will be e-waste in 2 years, just look at how many more features the note 9 and 8 have compared to the s23 ultra, while the latter costs double

Oh no, someone think of the poor widdle manufacturers who cannot fit such a huge waterproof and dustproof headphone jack wich was in a 6+ years old phone(wich I had for 4+ years and the jack was replaced once only because I was stupid and put things in it) wich also had credit card emulation(and not simple nfc), heartbeat sensor, internal space for a pen on the note model, sd card, dual sim, dedicated iris scanner, touch pressure sensitivity and many more things while being smaller than modern flagships

I may be wrong but if I remember correctly the reason it lags is that until the recent forced earbuds explosion the bluetooth protocol was focused on low energy efficient transmission for personal smart devices, and audio transmission was just an "extra" feature

I've had a sticker (bought on aliexpress so nothing of quality) on my deck for a bit more than a year and there seem to be no problems, regarding the carrying case I imagine stickers don't stick very much there but I've never tried