> At some point a manufacturer will get wise and start selling manual controls as an upgrade.
Will they really?
Most consumers invest very little effort in researching most of their purchases, and are remarkably tolerant to specific kinds of annoyances. I wish that they invested more effort, but based on my observations of my friends and family (who will spend e.g. about 20 minutes researching their $600 phone purchase), they won't, with a few outliers.
An imperfect comparison might be the amount of effort that the average techie spends on purchasing a MicroSD card or USB drive (usually on Amazon). How many people, even programmers, will spend time looking for durability or third-party performance benchmarking numbers? How many will look for child/slave labor in the manufacturing of the device, or rare earth materials sourced from areas in conflict?
I, personally, know that I should do the above, but I don't - partially because Google is so incredibly bad at finding the information, but also because I know that because most other people don't care, a lot of the above information might not exist at all.
I think most people look at it in a cost/benefit way. If it takes them three hours to research, they've spent 3x $hourly_rate + $item_cost—which in many instances may be more expensive than just selling off an item they can't stand and getting a different one. (To the extent that people do this even when it would pay for itself, I think it's mostly the result of just being in the habit.)
I try to view it instead as being paid (albeit at a lower rate) for my off time. (And if you do this for everything, you'll tend to spend less, have more in the bank, and the amount you get 'paid' will increase over time.)
I think a car is definitely one product that the typical consumer does at least some research on, given that it's such a large purchase. Consumer Reports certainly grades infotainment systems and maybe that's having some impact in manufacturers choosing better options. Although maybe that's less impactful from the sales boost that comes from dealers showing off "neat" features of the touchscreen.
Will they really?
Most consumers invest very little effort in researching most of their purchases, and are remarkably tolerant to specific kinds of annoyances. I wish that they invested more effort, but based on my observations of my friends and family (who will spend e.g. about 20 minutes researching their $600 phone purchase), they won't, with a few outliers.
An imperfect comparison might be the amount of effort that the average techie spends on purchasing a MicroSD card or USB drive (usually on Amazon). How many people, even programmers, will spend time looking for durability or third-party performance benchmarking numbers? How many will look for child/slave labor in the manufacturing of the device, or rare earth materials sourced from areas in conflict?
I, personally, know that I should do the above, but I don't - partially because Google is so incredibly bad at finding the information, but also because I know that because most other people don't care, a lot of the above information might not exist at all.