Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm with you on this! Here's a bit of a marginally related rant. So, I moved to the Netherlands about four years ago. Of course I needed a bike. Since I was a child, I always fixed my bike if there was a problem. I've replaced punctured tube countless times. Yet, in the Netherlands, I discovered that on the local bikes the gear box is a lot more complex... and you need to disassemble it in order to remove the back wh…
By gear box do you mean the covered system between the bottom bracket/cranks and the rear wheel? Dutch commuter bikes are usually one speed and that system keeps grime out of the chain and keeps your pants clean. It is indeed a PITA to remove the rear wheel on these bikes (especially the first time), although you can often patch a tube in situ without removing it completely. This product does not replace that system.…
* Spokes don't really fit into the hole (and you aren't really going to pull a spoke out of the wheel to take the wheel off anyways). * Adjusting the tension on the cable takes many tries. And you can't really adjust it without taking the wheel off. So, you put it together, try riding it and see if the speeds switch properly. Once you see they don't, you take the wheel off, pull the cable a little bit. Rinse and repeat.
Not to mention that the parts are very small and easy to lose if you have to make an emergency repair. It's very sensitive to dirt.
It looks more "compact" and out of sight, and from what I can tell from talking to my Dutch friends / acquaintances: punctures don't happen that often because roads are kept relatively clean. And people would generally just go to a bike shop and pay to have things fixed. So, decreased reliability and difficulty in maintenance don't bother them.