For where precision matters, 100% agree. For people like me who just want something halfway tasty but also quickly, the convenience of volumetric scoops is compelling.
I have a lot of junk in my kitchen drawers (admittedly a personal problem) and will opt for measuring directly from the bag into the bowl on a scale over digging around for that quarter cup every time.
A set of measuring cups and a digital kitchen scale probably cost about the same.
Just checked this with a quick search on Amazon -- most results are in the $15-20 range, with some available for $10 or less.
(I dare say there are probably very cheap measuring cups available, and for a scale you’ll have to fork out occasionally for batteries, if you want to split hairs.)
Mechanical scales were normal in the UK for most of the 20th century. Everyone I knew had one in the 1990s, from around 2000 people started buying digital scales, and I took my mum's mechanical scale when I left for university.
Measuring ingredients by weight has a long history on Britain. The old, Victorian cookbooks use weights.
I’m generally a fan of simple mechanical devices over electronics, but I think digital scales are a good example where electronics really do makes things simpler; and as it’s a commodity (like calculators and digital watches) the electronic version is amazingly cheap too.
The ability to zero the count as you add each ingredient to a single bowl is very useful.
