Also a great way to ruin the contacts and disable it forever. Use compressed air and something other than a toothpick. Eeek.

I have never had an issue using wooden toothpicks for the headphone and lightning cable jacks. It feels like you'd really have to try to break the pin connections that way

I've cleared it out a few times, but I think stuff in there's gotten damaged now. It's a slight inconvenience when my headphones aren't charged or I can't use them, but again as anecdata, losing the headphone jack having one in the device hasn't exactly changed my world.

I use an interdental brush. It's soft and designed for getting debris out of sensitive places. Works a treat.

I've found a paperclip to work the best. Just bend it around a joint a couple of times until it snaps off and you have a little fish hook that'll grab onto any lint and pull it out with minimal risk of damaging the connectors :)