On the contrary, early sunset is little trouble but having to get out of bed when it seems like it's still the middle of the night is hell.

More people are awake at 5pm than at 7am though. Lots of people won't benefit from more sunlight that early in the morning, but almost everyone benefits from more sunlight in late afternoon / early evening.

> More people are awake at 5pm than at 7am though.

"More" perhaps, but probably not by that much? Schools start around 8, most people need to be in the office before 9, and so on. I don't know many people who are able to get up later than 7:30 or so, unless they work from home. And with permanent DST, the sun won't finish rising until after 8 am.

> the sun won't finish rising until after 8 am

This is only true for the northernmost reaches of the US on the darkest days of the year. Portland Maine will see sunrise at around 8:15 on the darkest day, Seattle will have it around 8:30. 99% of Americans will still wake up to sunrise year-round

I live in NYC, which is not that far north, and in the week before DST ends it's still quite dark as late as 7:40.

> I don't know many people who are able to get up later than 7:30 or so

I hardly know anyone who gets up regularly before 8am.

Yeah, but in winter I get up when it's dark and it's dark again by the time I leave work. It's extremely depressing. At least with perma-DST (or BST as it would be here) I'd have some chance of a bit of daylight at the end of the day.

I have black-out curtains, so it looks like the middle of the night at high noon in my bedroom. A sun filled room while I'm trying to sleep would be my version of hell.

Where do you live that DST would make you wake up in the middle of the night? Even in Seattle twilight officially starts around 6:30am at the latest.

It feels like it when it's still dark.

This exactly. Having it still be bright out after your work day is so nice. When the sun has already set by the time you're leaving work, it feels like the day has already ended.

Sunlight after work is a nice-to-have. But for people who have trouble getting out of bed in the morning, darkness in the morning means a bad start to the day.

Same: I really struggle in winter and the biggest factor, by far, is that it gets dark so early.

Is this based on your own experience dealing with SAD?

huh? For people that actually experience seasonal affective disorder, the damage is already done by 4pm, your day has already been ruined. People who actually deal with this typically use a SAD lamp first thing in the morning.