I actually go to the trouble of removing them from the headphone jack and wrap them rather snug around my hand before cramming them in my pocket/laptop bag/car console. I feel much the same as you. This is ordinary use. Then again, at $29 USD for the head set, I suppose Apple probably figures that 6 months of hard use is about right at that price. I just don’t like spending $100 or more per year replacing headphones.

I guess I have two options: be gentler with my audio equipment or buy something more durable.

I have got through three pairs of earphones in a year. One ear-bud always stops working after a while — it’s intermittent at first, and I can overcome it by holding the wires in a certain way (it gives mildly interesting effect when cycling), but after another fashion I’m completely stranded with sound coming into just one ear. I do roll them fairly tightly around my device and shove them in my pocket, which is probably a bit hard on them, but what do you expect me to do? It seems like ordinary use to me. Evidently, not all earphones are equal.