I mean, I don't disagree with you, but

That automobile which was once a rare luxury item (and before that an impossible fantasy) is now "merely" a safe, efficient, comfortable, and relatively affordable machine that enables you to get to your climate controlled, 9-to-5 workplace without breaking a sweat.

This changed when we changed the way we built our cities (as well as their outlying areas) so that it became necessary to own a vehicle to access many basic services. You need to consider real life applications.

I live in a place where, to get to my 6 am start prep cook and baking job I'd have to walk two hours, and there is no such thing as bus service. add another two hours to walk home and I've spent 10 hours of my day at work and in travel to and from it. Compare that to 6 hrs of work plus 15 total minutes of travel (I live on a rural highway, speed limit 80Km/50mph), having a car means that I can do things like Teach music lessons after work to supplement my income.

Owning a car also means that I can get into the closest major city for my appointments with my Hormone Doctor, or crazy thought, actually be able to go to my local doctor without taking a day off of work because of travel time (I'd estimate 2.5 to 3 hours to get to the doctor from where I live). Even if the Greyhound DID stop off the highway in the town I live (it doesn't), I'd still have to take two days off of work for the appointment and travel .

I'd love to live in the city and have access to all these things via bus service and walking - but I can't afford it. I currently live in my parents' basement in Rural Ontario, trying to save money to go back to school. I'm not even that rural. I'm an hour outside of a major city. If I lived further out, it would be even worse.

But even living in cities can pose problems, when they're designed with cars in mind. I lived in Akron, OH, for my MMus, and while i was a 3 minute walk from the hospital, I was an hour round trip walk from the closest grocery store - Busses existed, but were infrequent to the point that they were neglible.

Suddenly, all of the things you do in a day that take little to no time become all-time consuming when you have to walk everywhere - or even bike everywhere. add and hour to groceries, add an hour to travel to and from university, oops, need to pick up some medication, add an hour to get to the pharmacy. the list goes on. Instead, with a car, it can be 20 minutes round trip to and from university, 15 minutes round trip to and from the grocery store, with a stop on the way home to the pharmacy because seeing the sign on the road reminded me that I needed to pick up my prescription.

You're right, cars started as a luxury, and in many ways still are, but they're also a necessity to anyone who lives outside of a major city and wants to even partially take part in "society".

At this point I'm kind of rereading this and seeing you're more inferring that we should be... i guess more in awe of what defines a lower or middle class existence, but I guess it's hard to be in awe of things you need to function.