I work in a kitchen. There is a lot of flour dust. Phone goes in my pocket port up. After a year the build up is enough to warrant a cleaning due to issues.

I'm stomping around the backwoods of NW Florida, occasionally crawling under bushes, no issues. Pixels suck at getting wet though, never again.

I even have my phone upside down in my pocket so the charging port is facing up.

This is probably the difference, people who put their phone in with the port facing down in their pocket have lots of opportunity to pickup lint as the phone is going into the pocket on the way down, and then also as you're moving, any lint collected in the bottom of your pocket can enter the port. Unless you have super baggy pants, debris won't be randomly entering your pocket from the top and getting into the charging port if you have the phone upside down with the charging port facing up.

I mean I feel like your response says more to the polarity of lifestyles between the two of us than anything. Your go to top of the head way of getting dirt in a phone's port was rolling in the mud? Lol

How about sawdust from sanding 1,200 feet of cedar. Or literal piles of dirt amd leaves covering stored acorns when im brushing off the seat of my tree stand for the 1st time in the past 9-10 months. Or flipping a breaker in my basement that was built in 1890 and basically a hole in the ground. Thats all happ3ned in the past week and a half or so. Extrapolate that over 1 to 3 years and you have yourself a good collection of dust particles getting compacted down with each time it gets plugged in.