Just because a technology has become pervasive in some lives doesn't mean that it does a lot that matters. Like any other tradition, its value is often incidental and its popularity is mostly an accident of history (marketing, curiosity, fashion, ephemeral supply/industry shocks, etc).
Nonstick pans and synthetic fabrics are very much in that group.
While my view might be cynical, it is closer to reality than getting people to give up creature comforts voluntarily.
No. If these things were never invented, those people would no be asking for them. Least not very much.
what an even more myopic view. if only unicorns were real and pots of gold were at the ends of rainbows. if only wishing made it so. You can't put the genie back in the bottle.
Of course some would, but in a world where they never existed yet it would be a sort of fantasy wish. As an example where we are on the other side right now, people are trying to figure out how to make beverage containers out of paper. Not coffee cups, but longer term storage so you might buy a 6-pack of carbonated drink in a paper "can" vs metal or plastic. Never mind if you or I think that's a good idea, there are people working on it and some day it might come to be and people might think it's great for whatever reasons. My point is that the masses are not clamoring for paper cans today because they don't exist yet. Likewise, before the advent of non-stick pans, people weren't demanding them because they didn't know it was possible. That's all I meant. So no, I don't think people were seriously asking for non-stick pans prior to their invention, they simply lived with what was available.
The thing that gets me is that if something is so caustic or reactive that it is causing issues with the metal in the can, WHY is it a good idea for human consumption. I've seen concrete at one of those gives you wings beverage makers where the concrete at the shipping dock had to be replaced after enough spills weakened the concrete. Yet people still continue to put that in their bodies.
This is in addition to the constant state of chemically-mediated algorithmic war with swarms or hive-minds of rogue nanotechnology from an ancient Gray Goo apocalypse, but that's another story.
If it helped me avoid eating 20 meals out it easily paid for itself.