> Well of course the thing trying to address the problem addresses the problem....

The point is that it is a thing trying to address the "problem", and that not everyone considers it a problem.

> Which is what uv does and pip doesn't.

The point is that you might want to install something not for use in a "project", and that you might want to explicitly hand-craft the full contents of the environment. Pip is fundamentally a lower-level tool than uv.

> The thing that should be automatic.

Bootstrapping pip is the default so that people who have barely learned what Python is don't ask where pip is, or why pip isn't installing into the (right) virtual environment.

Yes, there are lots of flaws in pip. The problem is not virtual environments. Uv uses the same virtual environments. Neither is the problem "being a low-level tool that directly installs packages and their dependencies". I actively want to have that tool, and actively don't want a tool that tries to take over my entire project workflow.