Audiophiles basically agree that ears are sub-par

Does Apple care what audiophiles think? iPods and the default ear buds are low quality compared to most audiophile gear.

Apple's new earpods are a huge step up from their old earbuds, and given their price ($30) are well up there in their price range. Most reviews I've seen of them from more audiophile oriented sources have been very positive given their context. No they won't compete with $200 headphones or earphones, but they're supposed to either.

Apple's customers should probably care that they are going to be ripped off on headphones. The issue isn't "audiophiles don't like them". It's that you can pay a lot less money and get much better headphones.

let me correct that for you...

Apple's customers ██ █████ ███ ██ ██ are going to be ripped off █ ██████.

But that's not their target demographic so it's moot.

And audiophiles are, by definition, a tiny margin of the market. They're not the target audience of beats.

Source: http://www.audiocheck.net/soundtests_headphones.php

But me, I use the cheapest Panasonic headphones because they look cool and they're durable, and that's good enough for me. Probably for a lot of people. These: http://www.cnet.com/products/panasonic-rp-htx7-white/

They're not terrible just poor bang per buck.