the other night i was up at 2AM watching infomercials and i had a minor revelation about why stuff like the "ninja combi" (i think just another glorified toaster oven) bug me a bit, and it came when the ad showed a complete dinner table fully stocked with foods that could all be prepared in this device
see, that's impossible, because every part of a large meal needs to be cooked close to simultaneously. stoves usually have four burners, so you can prepare multiple dishes at once. and while multi-cooking in ovens is often impractical, just as often you can make it work, and of course dual-oven designs exist (though they aren't too common nowadays ime.) either way, the point is that nobody anywhere is ever going to buy four ninja combis and line them up on their counter. you cannot fill an entire table with Gadget food because nobody alive owns more than one of the same Gadget.
I've actually run into this problem a lot with my air fryer. i only own one; it's huge, so I have no room for another, yet it also only (barely) fits one item. if I identify two things i can make with it, that's great, unless they're two parts of the same meal, in which case I now have to choose which one will be getting the conventional stovetop treatment. it also cooks so differently, at such a dissimilar pace to the stove, that it's hard to synchronize the two; if I make burgers and fries, the air-fried fries are never done on time, and after several dozen attempts i still haven't nailed it.
this isn't to say that these things are useless etc., i'm just realizing why i always feel a little bit lied to; even in the cases where they do work as advertised, there's a reason that the conventional Complete Meal will be a stovetop production: the stove, A Single Appliance (for most intents and purposes) can produce, for instance, meat, vegetables, and bread simultaneously, all in one space that's already reserved for it in nearly all kitchens.
this is of course an excellent opportunity for AGA Cooker Enthusiasts to show up and talk about how the conventional hob itself represents a massive step backwards from the next-generation kitchen technology we left by the roadside
