Mine lives in the bottom of whatever bag I'm carrying that day, and it's the thing I actually grab when I'm nipping out without the big bag at all, just keys, card, lip balm and phone shoved into something small enough to go under one arm or into a coat pocket. It's the going to the shop, the quick coffee, the school pickup pouch. If I'm leaving the house for under an hour, this is what comes with me, not the tote with three dead receipts and a hairbrush in it.
Where it falls apart is anything that needs you hands free for longer than that hour, because most pouches have no strap, and holding a clutch while you're also holding a lead, a toddler and a coffee is a genuinely stupid way to spend a morning, I've done it, I do not recommend it. They're also the wrong call for anything you need to find in a hurry, a zip pouch with no pockets inside turns into a lucky dip the second you add a second lip balm, so if you're someone who needs your bus pass instantly and not after a minute of patting around, a pouch with no internal structure will test your patience on a cold platform. In a shop, open it fully and run your hand round the inside seams, cheap linings pucker and catch on zips within weeks, and press the zip pull itself, if it feels thin or wobbly that's the first thing that'll go. As for colour, I've learned the hard way that pale ones show every pen mark and lipstick smudge from the first week, so a soft tan, black, or a deep navy hides the daily damage far better than the cream one I bought and ruined with a biro in about four days. A good textured leather or a proper canvas also ages better than shiny faux finishes, which tend to crack along the fold line once you've opened and shut them a hundred times.
Treat it a bit like a phone case, honestly, because it takes the same daily knocks. A leather one softens and gets a bit of a patina if you let it, which I like, it starts looking like yours rather than new. Canvas ones mark but wipe clean with a damp cloth more easily than you'd expect. Keep it out of the rain where you can, and don't cram it full every day, the zip takes the strain first and that's usually what fails before the fabric does. Tomorrow morning mine's going under my arm with jeans, a plain jumper and the kind of trainers that have seen better days, nothing clever, just the thing that lets me leave the house in under a minute.