There's a bit of a conflict between your post and it's grandparent.

> Freshly baked bread can be hard to obtain in many parts of the US. For me if I wanted fresh baked bread every day and not make it myself, I'd be looking at like 40-60 minutes of extra time per day if I drive there every day.

and

> But there are so many super-local bakers around the world. Single neighborhoods are willing to pay full-time wages to a baker just so they don't have to make their own bread. Explain why they do that if daily bread-making isn't a pain in the ass.

Which I have two thoughts on, first, I'm pretty sure most people are buying bread at the grocery store. So, the availability of fresh bread (which is also frequently available in the grocery store bakery) has more to do with lack of demand than it does with lack of availability. It seems like the convenience of pre-sliced bread that doesn't go bad in a couple days is just vastly preferred over fresh bread.

As for the local bakeries, I'd argue that those bakeries exist because they bake a variety of bread (and cakes) that are more involved than simple bread. I'd be shocked if the majority of the money they make wasn't from specialty items with wide margins.

The top level point I'm trying to get across has to do with the article and top level comment though, fresh bread is available to anybody with an extra few minutes every couple days. And, frankly, if you're doing any amount of cooking during the day, you can do it at the same time. There's usually some down time in a recipe that you could sneak in throwing a few ingredients into a mixer. Or put it together while watching whatever netflix show you're watching or podcast you're listening to.

Bread was certainly much more work but a stand mixer is not that expensive, especially compared to the amount of time it will save you if you cook semi-frequently (and even better if you make the bread you eat frequently). There are a plethora of modern conveniences that make bread so much easier to make than it used to be (and it was already pretty easy...).

> Which I have two thoughts on, first, I'm pretty sure most people are buying bread at the grocery store. So, the availability of fresh bread (which is also frequently available in the grocery store bakery) has more to do with lack of demand than it does with lack of availability. It seems like the convenience of pre-sliced bread that doesn't go bad in a couple days is just vastly preferred over fresh bread.

No my point is that going to the grocery store daily or near daily for fresh bread adds like an hour of time to my day, because there's no very close grocery store. Not even talking about a dedicated bakery

Right, where my wife grew up she could just walk out the front door and go like a block or two, and there'd be fresh everything - produce, baked goods, whatever. That doesn't exist for a lot of people in the US.