"Genuine leather" isnt technically bad, it's just a very broad and not useful term.

It literally just means exactly what it says, that it's not fake leather. You could take full thickness of a hide and label that genuine leather (though "full grain" would be a better descriptor). You could also take a bunch of suede scraps, glue them together, and coat it in polyurethane to look like a full grain, and label that "genuine leather".

You might have an actually decent leather. Nowadays, since people are more savvy to the meaninglessness of the term, reputable leather goods are typically not marked "genuine leather" since it has a negative connotation, but maybe not when you bought your wallet.

I will admit that I'm simplifying leather quality terminology quite a lot with that.

Really that's only part of the grading. There's different layers to leather like there is to our skin

Full grain leather is basically what you probably think leather is- a slab of animal hide with flesh removed that's been tanned

Top grain leather has basically had the very top layer sanded down to remove any imperfections.

Split gain leather has had ever more of the top layers removed (suede is a type of split grain) to

And genuine leather has had even more layers removed and usually needs a lot of processing done to it to make it look decent

The topmost layers are the most durable, and so genuine leather tends to not hold up as well as other grades, but it does have some valid uses, full grain leather can be stiff, and genuine leather tends to be pretty soft and flexible, and the other layers in between have their own properties that may or may not be desirable to preserve depending on the intended use.

And within those categories there are still other ways of grading quality- the quality of the hide you started with, different types of treatments and processing, etc. so there is genuine leather out there that is pretty nice, and trash full grain leather.

But as a genuine rule of thumb, if you're looking for a sturdy leather thing, genuine leather usually isn't the way to go

And then a step down you have stuff like bonded leather which is basically shredded up leather that's been mixed with rubber and such and formed into a sheet.