You want pancakes. Not the idea of pancakes — actual pancakes, on a plate, before the coffee's even finished. But first there's a bowl. Then a whisk. Then flour on the counter, batter down the side of the bowl, and a ladle that drips a trail from stovetop to sink.
By the time the first pancake hits the pan, you've already used three dishes and wiped the counter twice. On a weekday, that's the whole reason cereal wins.
Weekends aren't much better. You want it to be a whole thing — kids helping, maybe music on — but a full bowl of batter next to a hot griddle isn't something you hand to a six-year-old. So they watch instead of help, which isn't really the morning you had in mind.
None of this is a big problem. It's a small one, every single time you make pancakes. That's exactly why nobody's fixed it — until they stop using a bowl at all.