For me it depends on the type of car. I’ve mostly had hot hatches over the years and had both manual and flappy paddle variants and there’s no way you can beat the feel of a manual in a car designed to be fun and engaging. In my current car (Volvo XC40) there’s no way you’d want a manual box as it’s mostly about comfortable cruising. Excepting performance cars I think auto boxes are like dishwashers. Once you’ve had one you wonder how you ever coped without it ?.