The issue with the fold is that it opens into a tablet from factor that Android has notoriously been awful at supporting. Even after the release of their new tablet and now the fold their support is severely lacking. Ive owned both the pixel and Galaxy fold and experience wise the Galaxy fold is vastly superior. Just the fact that whenever you open the phone it’s defaults to a portrait mode means 99% of apps “just work” and the ones that support a tablet ui get 10x better. As cool as the passport form factor is and how bad (to some, not me) the Galaxy’s super thin design is, the pixel fold just cannot compete due to Google’s failings in gathering support for tablets. I ditched my pixel fold for my old Galaxy fold and couldn’t be happier.
I don’t think there’s not an audience however; old people who want a bigger screen, people addicted to their phone, kids for big screen gaming, all great examples of how foldables succeed. I honestly think most of the hate for them comes from the fact that they’re big and bulky, especially from a userbase like Lemmy, which from what I’ve seen are predisposed to small phones. I think if every carrier just gave out a Galaxy fold then everyone who didn’t care about a small form factor would fall in love. I sincerely believe that they are the future and am dying for apple to release one, since that’ll be the nail in the coffin for traditional slabs.