Foldable displays are still relatively new technology and they have their downsides. People these days are very unforgiving of early tech. Everything has to be just be perfect from version 1 for people complain, but that's not possible. You can't perfect a product in isolation, you have to have earlier versions on the market to be able to find where the problems are.

I just don't listen to them.

If the Model One Ford came out these days they'd complain it was too slow.

Whenever my upgrade window comes around, I ponder getting a folding phone. But two things stop me.

Firstly, they all run Android, and having been on iOS since 2009 I have very little ambition to switch.

Secondly, as it stands, it's a point of failure that will massively impact its resale value when I upgrade. It's bad enough trying to sell a phone with a two or three year old battery, but batteries can (in general) be replaced. Now imagine trying to sell a phone that has three years worth of screen wear on it, knowing that it could fracture at any moment.

So in the end, cool as they are, they're also pretty handy to the manufacturers as offering a point of failure that'll make them unsellable.

I personally believe it's not supposed to be pocketed but to be backpacked. They're trying to encourage less phone usage, you should use your watch for immediate notifications and only get your phone out to use it for taking a picture, drawing something with the apple pencil or another task that requires a phone. Most everything else should be done by the watch though.

What phone is this?

Have you looked into stuff like this:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/PinePhone_Pro