The cell phone Bluetooth headsets produced plenty of eyerolls when they were the thing a number of years back too. Probably for similar reasons--you never know when I may get a phone call that's more important than you.

Personally, I don't wear these sorts of things in public but that's mostly because I hate being isolated from even relatively benign environments.

If you are in public you can hear anything through EarPods or AirPods they don’t cancel any noise. If I’m on the subway I can’t even hear the music haha. Interestingly, that’s a primary reason why I like it - I can roll with my e-scooter and hear bikers and cars at the same time.