You're right that it does not take input from the user. But I think you're in agreement with me that not everything is pipe-able.

The buffer in Unix (or rather C?) file output goes back to the beginning of time. It's not the pipe that's buffering.

Anyways, as soon as your mental model of these command line utilities includes the buffering then the behavior makes sense. How friendly it is can be debated. Trying to make it work with timers feels wrong and would introduce more complexity and deviate from some people's mental model.

The not-buffering when attached to a terminal also goes back the beginning of time.

I don't see any particular reason for a pipe to be more like a file than a terminal.

And I don't see why my mental model should be file-like and only file-like.

> Trying to make it work with timers feels wrong and would introduce more complexity and deviate from some people's mental model.

Oh, that's the specific proposed fix you meant. Okay, I can see why you'd dislike that, but I would say that forcing line mode doesn't have those downsides.