Dishwashers use a fraction of the water they used to. It is more water and power efficient to use a dishwasher then to wash dishes by hand. [1]

In all these responses what I'm noticing is people missing the vast gains in efficiency from our appliances over the last few decades: everything we have gives more, and uses less.

[1] https://www.aceee.org/files/proceedings/2008/data/papers/1_1...

On the other side the water and energy use has been trade off for time use. Living in country with plenty of fresh water I might prefer to waste some for faster cycle time. So in sense things have actually gotten worse.

It’s not really about water use. Dishwashers require very hot water, so less water directly translates into dramatically less energy use.

Fair enough, though convection microwaves are a real improvement. Traditional microwaves meanwhile cost about 1/10th as much as an 80’s microwave which is noticeable in it’s own way.