Then the US English is winning out because we never said earphones over here. I’m much older so have a clear memory of when they hit the market. We said earbud for a while but that was a momentary distinction and it seems we’ve mostly reverted to our generic term of headphones (which lacks any distinction on form factor ) so we use it for pretty much any and all cases.

I actually think the AirPods naming helped this as it’s kind of a clunky product name that’s nearly a misnomer if you consider iPod is still a part of our vernacular. I don’t hear people saying “where are my AirPods?” Instead it’s “where are my headphones?” Had it been called AirBuds then maybe it would have stuck since ear buds was a thing.

As I think back, I feel like earbud is distinctly tied to the corded iPod accessory. As that died out, so has the term.