> Who cares though?
a lot of normal people who daily-use their phones near water and even jump into pools with them. I would bet you $100 that if you asked people "replaceable battery of water proofing to the same level you have it now", ~ nobody will puck the former.
Those people are doing a very stupid thing. I don't think that the world should be ordered around "let's make it so people can do stupid things without consequence".
Those people are the public buying the phones. Companies make phones that more people will buy. Turns out your desire for a bulky phone with a replaceable battery is less common than their desire for a phone that does not get destroyed when dropped into a pool.
Not once in my life I had thought "I would like to jump into this pool with my phone", while I did sometimes replace the battery on-the-go which actually made my life easier. It's an absurd take. If anything, I'd be more concerned with beverage spills, but these are still easier to avoid than drops.
Well you are the exception. Especially if you live in a hot area where a lot of people have backyard pools. Being in and out of the water constantly is a very normal in Florida for example.
Most the suburban kids in Houston had wristband attachments to their phones in the pool or would be in a floaty taking stupid pics of each other as kids do. Trying to keep a modern phone dry takes away a lot of utility.
Not a lot of people live in hot areas with plenty of backyard pools, but I can understand that waterproof phones could become more popular there than in the rest of the world based on this property alone (right now they're popular because there's not much choice).