If you want 0 = no sound, then you can’t use a logarithmic scale. You end up with sound being measured as Pascals in the micro to unit range.

“0 dB SPL” is 20 micro pascals which is roughly the threshold of hearing. A loud rock concert at 120 dB SPL is 20 pascals (no micro). The dB figures are a lot more convenient to work with.

It’s intuitive for 0 to be silent and 100 to be full, but if you work with audio you learn that dB are more convenient. Long-term convenience for experts tends to win out over short-term intuition for non-experts. This is why musicians continue to use sheet music and all of its seemingly ridiculous conventions—and likewise, decibels only seem ridiculous to people who don’t work in audio.

I don’t know what more usable alternative there would be, to decibels.