How can anybody actually use these?

My headphones broke the other day, and in the run up to Christmas, I'm too poor at the moment to buy a new pair. As such, for the last two weeks I've had to use the standard issue in-ear Apple headphones

You can't even turn the iPod up to it's full volume without the sound distorting. How is it even possible that they can issue headphones that can't actually handle the volume of the device they come with? As far as I can tell, this is not part of a bigger plan to get you to buy more expensive Apple headphones - it's not like they push them too heavily, is it?

It's infuriating. It's actually making me listen to far less music at the moment. I've become Mr Podcast, and I don't like it, I don't like it one bit