Box cake mix almost never tastes better than scratch.
Next you’ll tell me store-bought frosting tastes better?
Next you’ll tell me store-bought frosting tastes better?
But it wasn't better. I like to get a nice glossy top on a brownie with a fudgy consistency under it. The glossy top cracks when you bite into it and it's amazing. But there's no way to do that with a box mix. The top comes from whipping air into the butter, egg and sugar mixture but a box mix is one bag. You try to beat air into it and you develop the gluten and it turns out terrible.
Box mixes are acceptable. But they don't beat from scratch by a long shot, unless its your first time or to ever for baking.
It may or may not be healthier, but the subjective taste preferences of the masses is pretty much settled fact at this point.
Frosting is a different topic - totally agree there, but I haven't seen any blind taste tests on that one.
The professional bakers around me who do a dozen cakes a day or whatnot are all pre-made mixes, maybe some small modifications to the mix, and from-scratch frostings. I'm not sure I could even find a local spot with cakes made from scratch - at least in the traditional sense. The spots making 200 cakes a day perhaps, but those are going to look a lot more like the mixes you buy from Sysco or whatnot.
Could be a "New Coke"[1] thing, where people just like the one with more sugar. There's a reason food companies pack the stuff into everything - it (usually) works.
The masses sustain Hostess by buying enough of their atrocious boxed "cakes" and cookies. I really wouldn't trust their taste buds.
If your argument is, "if making cakes for the masses, boxed is fine," sure, I don't disagree. My argument is that I hang out with folks that do care about that kind of thing and basically never go to the middle aisles of a grocery store - that crowd will appreciate baked with straightforward ingredients. Flour, sugar, actual cocoa powder, yeast, whatever.
You will be surprised to learn that brands have very differently tasting products developed for different markets. Often even under the same name.
This is an issue with Kellogg's cereal and Lay's potato chips in China. They purport to be available. But they're not the same product.
I'm not sure why this is supposed to be a good idea; it entirely defeats the purpose of branding.
95% of bakeries are using a box mix and a packet of jello pudding. That's the secret.