It's 2026, why are people still using custom launchers?

Serious question from a former Nova Prime user.

I don't want a big search bar on my home screen, and there's no way around it with the Pixel Launcher except use a different launcher.

Honestly... I just wants a launcher with tabs to sort apps in categories (no not app groups).

Nova Prime almost gone, before that Apex Launcher...

And every other launcher seems to just love to just present a search bar to find your apps and use some magic sorting algorithm to sort your apps...

I want predictable, user ordered apps in tabs so I can open one by heart with my eyes closed.

Why? To avoid using Google search. It's been an inferior search product for years. Last time I used the default launcher on a pixel, I couldn't change it to a better search product, so I changed launcher.