I have 4 kids. Having a centrally visible (kitchen wall), huge (A3 or bigger) zero power consumption display of the family calendar is absolutely fucking essential to my and my spouse's scheduling needs, by which I actually mean our sanity.

I think there's a huge market for things in plain sight.

That said, with new displays you can hang on a wall, there might be a replacement.

Related, I wonder why we can't store more of our stuff in shallow drawers where everything is visible (think rolling tool chest drawers where you can open one and see all your wrenches at once)

Not buy, but I print out a 2-month "calendar" (just the current + next month) every month. I love scribbling on it, drawing arrows, x-ing stuff out, colors, whatever. I do 2 months since near the end of the month, stuff will bleed into the upcoming month. On the 1st, I thoroughly enjoy printing out a clean version for the next 2 months and copying the rollover items. It is a satisfying ritual.

A calendar with good art or photography can be worth it as a wall decoration alone. I find them especially nice for the kitchen because it isn't the end of the world if a $20 calendar gets wet or dirty.

Sometimes they have nice designs or pretty pictures.

Circling an important date takes very little effort.

No opportunity for distractions.

That whole "flip through the months to think through future schedules" is actually a pretty good UX.

I haven't bought one, but they're handy to write future events on for reference, and they often have a pleasant picture to look at for every month.

In my house, we ended up with a makeshift calendar on a whiteboard with the basic events. Trash + X day (greenwaste and recyling alternate), school days, practice days, vacations and visitors, volunteering. Everyone can glance at it and know what's going on.

Computerized calendars are nice too, but don't live in a certain place to be looked at in passing.