I tend to use Nespresso, especially now that the cups are simply available in the shop (and cheap aftermarket options), it's pretty perfect.
I know the manual process is more environmentally friendly but when I wake up in the morning I have no headspace for fussing with coffee grinds. I just need good coffee right away. And I don't even own a car or anything nor have kids so my footprint is pretty low.
Most people like the taste of Nespresso pods, k-cups, drip coffee and Starbucks. The sales of all 4 reflect that.
I can't bring myself to drink instant coffee any more and will choose any kind of tea in preference to having to suffer the insult of instant "coffee". Drip-machine coffee at least uses real coffee, but in most people's hands leads to a horribly over-extracted brew and typically it's using supermarket-bought stale pre-ground coffee.
If you want to taste nice/good coffee, it can be made relatively cheaply. Buy some whole roasted beans (pre-ground coffee goes stale before it even hits the supermarket shelves), a decent hand burr grinder and an Aeropress device.
If you want to go for an electric bean grinder, ensure that it's a burr grinder as blade grinders are not suitable - they produce a wide variety of particle sizes which means that the small/dust bits get over-extracted and the larger particles are under-extracted. You could try sieving out the unwanted larger and smaller bits, but it's easier to just get a good grinder. For using an Aeropress, you can get away with a "cheaper" burr grinder, but if you want to make home espressos, then you probably want to be spending a LOT on a decent grinder as that will make the most difference to the quality of the espresso.
I myself make my morning coffee in a moka pot and prefer it over for example a pour over coffee. I recently got a Ninja Luxe Cafe machine which I use for espresso and fast cold brew coffee drinks. It makes decent espresso and the money, time and mental energy for getting a slightly better espresso through a more expensive machine is just not worth it to me. At my gitlfriend's I drink Nespresso because that is what she has. It tastes fine. It is definitely not horrible as many above have claimed.
I'd agree that getting better quality espressos can get expensive very quickly, and moka pots make very nice coffee for the price (definitely diminishing returns for high end equipment).
To me, the best bang for your buck comes with grinding beans to order, as that means that your coffee isn't oxidising so much before you even brew it. Personally, I'm a fan of immersion brewing techniques, so an Aeropress is my weapon of choice - it's relatively cheap and can make outstanding coffee (also highly portable - I take it along with a hand grinder when camping).
And sorry, but I do find Nespresso to taste very flat and stale the few times that I've tried it. I'd rather just have a good cup of tea than a stale cup of coffee.