This is like asking: People who eat food for the calories, why don't you just eat dry primate food pellets?
Because there's a big upside to enjoying the experience of drinking coffee with few downsides. If coffee was just caffeine dissolved in water it'd be a very different story
Me, unfortunately. Never picked up the taste for coffee, but I accidentally got hooked on caffeine through energy drinks, which are way worse for you. Now I'm trying to acquire the taste for coffee at a late stage to wean myself off energy drinks.
I say this as a coffee drinker: try tea. There's way more flavor options to help you ease into it. Start with some fruity flavors and work your way toward the more bitter stuff (if you ever want to get there)
Drinking tea actually expanded my palate enough to learn how to enjoy black coffee. It wasn't until I started brewing my own including cleaning the machine myself that it started coming out good enough to really look forward to.
I've tried and failed to enjoy black coffee so many times until I realized it's the mouth feel. I don't prefer it with sugar but I need milk or creamer for it to be palatable!
Bad coffee can be really bad when it comes to texture. Grounds have ruined more than one cup of coffee since I've been drinking it regularly. Valid complaint.
Seconding the idea of tea. My schedule doesn't allow the amount of bathroom breaks I would need if I consumed enough tea to get the caffeine I need, but I would prefer tea over anything else given the chance.
I learned to drink coffee with chocolate milk mixed in, then after a week black coffee was palatable. Parents drank excessive levels so it was always available, no one had milk or sugar in it so.. I guess I learned it fast out of convenience :-)
If energy drinks and tea weren't a thing then yeah... but they are so I'm guessing not really.
Then again if coffee were the only caffeine option I probably wouldn't have a caffeine addiction...
I drink coffee mainly for the caffeine but I'd prefer to consume said caffeine via the most delicious method. Why NOT drink coffee if I also like the taste?
Your question is actually "people who drink coffee for caffeine even though they hate the taste, why not use caffeine pills?" which targets an extremely slim demographic