Lighting color is cultural. Go to Asia and you'll find many places, commercial and residential, lit with 5500K, traditionally fluorescents.

I've heard a theory that it has to do with genetics and lower eye sensitivity.

Is it by deliberate choice or something like availability? I come across enough people who don't seem to notice the difference at all, or at least until it's directly pointed out.

> I've heard a theory that it has to do with genetics and lower eye sensitivity.

Might be.

But I expect that -as you said- it's cultural, rather than biological. One's sense of color is amazingly adaptable [0], but when I do a side-by-side comparison, I find that I strongly prefer the "noontime sun" color to the "incandescent bulb orange" color. As a bonus, the "noontime sun" whitepoint is pretty close to the whitepoint of my monitors, so white things on the screen are very nearly the same color as white things on my desk.

[0] Go play the game "Return of the Obra Dinn" for like an hour straight, and then be amazed at how off your understanding of what black is has become.