It's primarily for safety, like walking outside so you're aware of your surroundings. As for critical listening, an open soundstage is more accurate to the original sound than closed headphones.

As a person, no. Most people maybe. It's incredibly liberating to not feel like you are missing out on the world around you sometimes (and safer). Sure sometimes I want to duck out and place my big puffy over ear speakers on and block everything out, but for day to day use for navigation, podcasts, phone conversations, AI interactions, and some stereo background music - this is exactly what this person wants.

Eeeehhhhh that depends.

I work delivering food on a bicycle. I need to be able to hear things. Would be nice if I could listing to my playlists and not drown out the car coming my way.

I use the shockz (another open ear headset) daily with my job. Work on equipment, a lot of tedious opening up a machine and fixing it. I don't have a singular place but move around a lot. Going from earbuds that I have to take out just to have a conversation if someone comes up and asks questions vs the open ear allows me to be able to know what's happening around me, keeps from annoying those around me with whatever I'm listening to, and I've chewed through so many audiobooks which has kept me from losing my mind.

Not if you're on the street and want to live.

Additional anecdote from me, but I specifically seek out good sound pass-thru over good noise cancelling because I use music to help focus but need to hear at the same time like, say, at work when a call comes in.

I don't need it to be particularly loud, either, as I also have audio processing disorder so some concerns I see in this thread such as (paraphrasing) "probably poor bass" isn't as much of a concern.

I currently use Sony's Latest LinkBud S earbuds, and I'm pretty happy with it. But if I were still looking for a pair, something like what's being offered here is exactly the sort of thing that would appeal to me.

These will undoubtedly appeal to a niche audience vs mass appeal, but so long as production doesn't outpace demand I could see such a line of ear buds becoming quite popular among those who want that feature specifically.

(Edit: oops, my instance got all weird and posted 4 times. Fixed.)

It's a grumpy brand

No, they attach to your earlobe.

It's the later. A small speaker pointed into your ear while not blocking it.

tbeyre defknitly not bone conducting, bone conduction headphones don't go in your ear

Sure but "almost always" is not "always". Maybe don't judge these until you've heard them?

You haven't even heard them and are making grand assumptions. The bass is great at low to medium listening levels but rolls off as you increase the volume due to physical limitations.

I dunno about style, but I like the concept. Normal buds just don't fit my ears.