@noiob they were mostly cosmetic, but I did have a soft case on one of my candy bar java phones

old phones were largely very small and light with comparatively small screens, so you're way less likely to break it compared to a thin, heavy device with the same or lower overal durability

@noiob I think cases were mostly for larger things like PDAs, pocket PCs and the like

@kyra yeah but those were usually OEM, weren't they?

@noiob where there's a popular device there's infinite injection moulded/pleather garbage to wrap it in

@kyra yeah but devices usually weren't that popular, or they had moving parts that were hard to build a case for

@noiob if you have a factory already you can sell 1% of the things you make and make a massive profit. Petroleum biproducts don't cost a whole lot

@noiob obviously prior to the iphone yeah they were less common but when you can make a thousand shitty cases for less than the device costs you're probably gonna at least try

@kyra molds and r&d cost money

@kyra also people ain't gonna buy cases for their nokias that leave a hole in the floor rather than break when dropped

@noiob there were other phone manufacturers, and also some of those cases were designed to provide grip on smooth plastic handsets rather than protecting them from falls

@noiob also water resistant cases were a thing

@kyra heh

@noiob but yeah manufacturers used to give you things before it became cool to remove a feature every 2 years

@pup_hime eh, that's a fundamentally different function though

@noiob i suppose