In the end, I think/fear that on average lazyness wins every time.
then again i ride bikes too and prefer a more active driving experience
Germany is a huge exporter of precision-engineering so there might be a cultural sentiment there.
Not substantially.
>they're more efficient
Not any more.
>they make the most of small engines with limited torque.
Ding. Ding. Ding. We have a winner!
People like manuals because they can choose when to up-shift whereas the guys programming the automatic transmission will program it to up-shift as soon as they think they can get away with (for fuel economy and emissions). With a manual you can let your 1L hornets nest scream along at 4k all the time giving you close to peak power on tap whenever you want it. Basically manuals are a hack around regulations that force manufactures to build cars with performance characteristics nobody wants (under-powered engines and transmissions that up-shift at the drop of a hat). Those regulations are much stronger in Europe so the value proposition of a manual transmission is better there.
Well... performance characteristics that everybody wants -- for everybody else. They themselves want warp drive, but prefer everybody else help hold down the price of gasoline and the carbon content of the atmosphere.
Can't do that with most automatics.
The feeling of slamming into second as you come out of a corner in a little sports car. In an automatic, its just a pedal and the wheel, in a manual you physically engage the warp mode. It feels good, gives a greater sense of power in your actions and also contributes to enjoyable familiar muscle memory. Humans dig physical ritual.
In this view, users still don't want control, its just a symptom of the failure to provide what users do actually want.
The truth is probably between these 2 outlooks
That's assuming there's a universal "good" - even if a school meets some general standards one school can have a better arts program, the other might be more biased towards sports, etc. I don't see anything wrong with having choice - having a good baseline everywhere is a separate issue.
I mean they like football, but they also like drawing, but then neither of those are well known for paying the bills. So I still circle back making sure they get a balanced education.
The problem though is that choice is the supposed solution to not having good schools. That may be UK specific though.
No. I want to send my kid to the local school that will be good and I want to go to the local hospital where I will be treated by a well qualified caring medical professional. I don't want to have to create pivot tables.
Yeah, people mostly start asking for control when you make the default experience shitty. They want control to escape the hell they've been put in, but they have to pay a price for it either in money or time. So functionally, "give users more control" is really saying "make the user pay more to use my product."
In an ideal world everything would be bespoke and custom tailored for me, but the idea there is that the tailor knows how to create what I want. Not that I have to go tailoring all my own stuff. I'm not competent enough to do that unless it's my hobby.
OTOH, if "user control" is seen as table stakes or baseline, it can limit the shittiness level that users will tolerate by lowering switching costs.
Customization gives control to those who want to take it.