On the Timing of Time Zone Changes (2016)

I've thought about this a lot too...one-hour gradiant jumps also make little sense and are only "accurate" for some point roughly in the center of the zone.

So, if there was "universal time", you might arrive in Phoenix at something that looks like 2200, and it's the afternoon. You might ask a local/hotel clerk/etc "what time do people go to bed here?" if you can't rely on the sun. However, you would be quite certain that the morning meeting is at say 1400, so you set your alarm for 1230 and everything just works!

There's an extensive discussion of this at https://qntm.org/abolish. (See also https://qntm.org/continuous.)

That would only marginally help, I think. Shifting the numbers used for hours of the day around won't make people go to bed at 2200 UTC in Australia or Los Angeles. Now instead of asking "If it's 1300 PST here, what time is it on Mars?", you're asking, "If it's mid-morning here at 1300 UTC, are people eating dinner or fast asleep on Mars?"

It gives you additional information about what people are doing at any given time in that timezone. If it's 2:25 PM KST, I know my buddy in Korea is probably sleeping.

America probably only needs two time zones, east and west, since the central zone mostly operates on the eastern timeframe anyway. People go to work by 8 or 8:30 in Chicago compared to 9:30 in the east. Local news is on at 10pm, not 11pm.