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> the analogy gives people the impression that electrons are bumping against eachother to propogate energy.

If this is not approximately how electricity works, why does the current stop flowing when you disconnect the wires, or equivalently when you "connect" them via something that doesn't have free electrons (i.e. an insulator)?

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There was a whole mess of STEM YouTubers arguing about this last year, e.g.: https://youtu.be/oI_X2cMHNe0?si=-PzCPZ5qNiS9nYFW

TL;DW: the power is transferred by the electric fields, it's the electric fields which move the electrons, if there's a break in the circuit the electrons necessarily accumulate in the places that minimise the electric fields.

Unfortunately the explanation to your question is something that takes years of education to understand and even then, most people just come out understanding some parts. The best I can do on an internet forum is tell you that the analogy is wrong, because experiments told us its wrong. My advice is if you want to understand this stuff, do the math! ;)

The water analogy makes perfectly good predictions for the kinds of things I do with electricity, so in that respect I find it useful.

As any analogy, it is not the same as the thing it is an analogy of, but an analogy can be useful without being complete.

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