For people with a self-perception of not being programmers (in other words, most people) spreadsheets are often the easiest and most flexible way to leverage a computer's ability to automate whatever their novel task is. Without spreadsheets, they'd either need to learn how to code or hire a programmer. Hiring a programmer to solve your special problem is a high bar to clear, and most people will never become programmers for various reasons. If you took spreadsheets away, I think most spreadsheet users would begrudgingly go back to pencils and pocket calculators.

True. The levels of complexity taken on by spreadsheets is astounding. Couple this with how difficult it can be to own a database in a corporate context and the company ends up with hundreds of spreadsheets that must be maintained across shared drives along with buggy macros.