It's a weird experience reading this about something I've never done nor really observed very often. People speed up when they see a pedestrian in a crosswalk? I see people stopping for pedestrians all the time. Sometimes cars will stop for me when I wish they wouldn't: just keep going, you were fine, I'm still like 5 seconds away from your path.
> The car is there “by default” and the pedestrian must ask permission to enter their realm
That's such a weirdly negative way of looking at the world. Dozens to hundreds of cars pass per minute and fewer than one pedestrian does (on average), so the pedestrian notifies the intersection that they're there. You'd rather every single light cycle assume pedestrians are crossing, even when 95% of the time they're not? You'd like to waste every driver's time to make some point about society?
There are plenty of intersections where a very minor road crosses a main road. When cars come to the intersection on the minor road, they "hit the button" by driving over the sensor, and the intersection knows they're there. Are they the poor pathetic outsiders "asking for permission" to "enter the realm" of the major street? I guess you could look at it that way if you wanted to be angry all the time. It's just simple optimization to make as many people as happy as possible. Just hit the damn walk button; it's fine.