It’s because you put the case down unevenly and most of the charge sloshed to one side

Fixed

Likely dirty/corroded charger connecting points that make the charging contact intermittent.

Clean them, scrape off the layer of crust/corrosion with a jewler’s screwdriver if you have to. Once they’re clean and charge well again, I recommend putting a little dab of dielectric grease to protect them from corroding again.

Mine started doing that a year after I bought them and I was about to throw them away when I tried doing that and it completely fixed it.

Could it be that only one of them connects to the phone, and then connects to the other earbud also, thus using up more power?

reasing this while my case is so empty that my headphones dont even turn on when i take them out, even though they still have charge (i used them just 20 minutes ago)

Likely the “brain” for the pair is on that side and the extra load of doing it’s job has worn down the battery’s life faster on that side.

Which pocket do you keep your phone in?

it’s always the left ear, why? i want to know too.

This is actually the primary reason I switched from Pixel to iPhone. I was sick and fed up of leaving the house, opening up the pixel buds case and 1 bud not connecting, or having minimal charge, or it just cuts out after a minute of listening to something. Standing in the middle of the street troubleshooting earbuds whilst I just want to listen to something whilst going somewhere was so frustrating. Moved to iphone and airpods - not had an issues since (about 2 years now). Yes I tried different earbuds with my pixel. No, they weren’t any better. In-fact I still have some and they work better with my iphone.

I don’t go in for fanboism when it comes to tech companies, but the build quality of Samsung and Google is atrocious.

Clean the case you nasty ass