[tgsovlerkhgsel]

There tends to be a massive difference between the effort required to get a visa, and the effort required to get ESTA.

ESTA roughly as annoying as booking a plane ticket if you don't already have an account with a pre-filled profile, and usually granted instantly.

A visa request, even if done online, can easily cost you many hours filling out forms, scanning documents, etc., and often takes weeks to process.

It's also much rarer for an ESTA to be denied than for a visa to be denied.

There's a reason why passportindex.org distinguishes mostly between "real" visa requirements, and mostly pro-forma stuff like ESTA, visa-on-arrival etc.