Camera manufacturers purposely make photos look bad to force people to buy editing software. Some of that thought is changing with Fujifilm and lately Lumix with real time LUT, but the thought stands.
I don’t think it’s coincidence that PhotoShop and the first mainstream digital camera came out in 1990.
With film, companies made money on the camera, the film, development or the materials you needed to develop. Now, they needed a new way to capitalize on digital.
In the early days of digital they touted their film like right out of camera. Then very shortly CCD sensors were replaced with CMOS sensors, ultra sharpness, color science, and more megapixels. That all magically needed to be shot in RAW and edited to look good.
Money stream restored. Sell expensive cameras with ever increasing stats that don’t result in better photos. Also, sell apps, or software, to process photos to make them look good. Remember, everything is designed to make someone money.
It’s all just a theory.
It truly is all just my thoughts, but how wrong is it? Doesn’t it seem that if you can take a fully flushed photo on your phone and only edit for a specific “vibe”. Those pro quality cell phone photos are done with zero real knowledge of photography. Shouldn’t cameras be smarter to bridge that gap, or are we all convinced that if you don’t edit your photos in LightRoom you aren’t a real photographer?