Fobs just created another attack vector catering to people too lazy to take it out of their pocket or purse.
My argument was also to the doors, though. Again, I got used to just leaving keys in the car at all times. I know movies make a cliche of the keys being above the visor, but I legit did stuff like that for a long time.
My grandparent's car didn't even need a key in the ignition to start. You could just turn it and have it get going for a while. He debated getting it fixed, but ultimately really liked how convenient it was.
My father had one of those vehicles with a keypad on the outside. I thought that was super convenient and quite nice. Especially good for traveling, as you didn't have to bother taking your keys with you.
And my argument was largely around norms. I don't like excessive punishment based societies, in general, but I also don't know why or how some grow to accept that some theft is just expected.
Keyless start has another legitimate function besides laziness: it allows you to leave your car locked with the engine (and AC) running while a baby or dog is inside.
Of course, you can accomplish the same by having two keys with you; you decide whether that's another example of laziness. :-)
Some aftermarket remote starts have this feature.
However, in many states it's illegal to leave a car running unattended.
Though one could argue in court the baby or dog could serve as the attendant. Having said that, leaving a baby or dog unattended, AC or not, is just stupid.
Here's the repo: https://github.com/joelsernamoreno/EvilCrowRF-V2
There were early generation keys for VATS/Pass-Key I/II style systems in the ~~80s-late 90s which weren't actually "chipped" but had some protection mechanisms mostly based around resistance. They were a bit useless in that they were very limited in possible values so even without a key one could just guess through them. Beyond that, there were also just cheap bypass modules https://www.the12volt.com/installbay/forum_posts.asp?tid=845.... Really, these were not much different than going after a normal physical key car because of the lack of actual chip. I don't think you were referring to these for these reasons, but I thought I'd cover them anyways.
Actual chipped-but-physically-inserted keys https://www.key4.com/gm-transponder-key-b111pt?srsltid=AfmBO... using chips like Hitag2 https://www.nxp.com/products/rfid-nfc/hitag-lf/hitag-2-trans... started to hit the market towards the late 90s. These still don't signal the chip communication through the metal of the key into the ignition though, they use 125 KHz RFID wireless transponders. The difference between these keys and fobs is, at most, the maximum range and they lack the buttons a fob would have. The underlying operation of the chip operate on the same principle though, there was no such thing as "wired"/"physically transmitted" chipped keys. As such cloning them was indeed as easy as buying some random RFID cloner and beaming it at someone's purse to then drive away. Of course the other attacks on the car systems themselves (i.e. without the key) also still exist but that's beside the point.
If you think you know of a chipped physically inserted key which you believe does not ultimately use an RFID transponder I'd be curious what make/model/year. Maybe there is just some key I've never heard of.