[ydant]

Convenience.

In our house plain rice is a staple eaten with almost every meal and often associated with non-time-intensive meal prep (like reheating leftovers or eaten with eggs and some other toppings). So we like being able to start the rice and walk away.

Using our rice cooker makes "making rice" a 1 minute labor effort with absolutely no monitoring needed. You can't burn it. You're welcome to forget about it. You can barely mess it up.

In our case the rice maker is a 25 year old simple magnet kind. Not one of the expensive pressure cookers. This style of rice maker can be bought for as little as ~$30 and is super-convenient if you eat a lot of rice. Just don't get the non-stick pots if you buy one - they aren't needed and they don't last for more than a couple of years.

[YeGoblynQueenne]

Thanks! I think one reason why I don't feel the convenience is because I usually don't cook rice on its own. Most of the time it goes in casseroles, pilafs, risottos, stuffed veg and things like that where it doesn't make sense to boil the rice separately (although sometimes it makes sense to parboil it). I did use to eat plenty of plain rice in the past, but I got into cooking more and more over the years and I don't eat plain rice that much anymore.