I mean, I have tried to learn the manual gearbox, and I would have gotten it given more time, but it took me about a year to learn to drive an automatic, this was while working full time at the same time. So I decided that with the rise of EVs and automatic gearboxes, I didn’t want to spend another half a year learning something that is going away.

I agree with you to a point, if you got the same kind of license taking the test in an automatic car as in a manual car, then I agree that a critical component is missing, but here in Sweden you are limited to only being allowed to drive automatic cars if you took the test in an automatic car.

If I need to, I am absolutely not against learning a manual gearbox and taking a new test later.

Me relying on an automatic gearbox does not make me a worse driver than the average driver.