A lot of DAWs use these. With the ones I have used you click the knob and then drag (up to turn the knob left, down for right). It's really horrible actually.
Right. Physically, potentiometers are semicircular sliders.
But another advantage of knobs is the ability to turn them, quickly and yet accurately, with thumb and first finger. Some even have push-pull gear reduction, to go between fast and accurate.
So you'd think that a GUI knob would use some analogous two-finger twisting gesture. With thumb and first finger.