I’ve never owned anything but a stick. I did my research and found the make and model of the car I wanted in January when my car died. I found out they stopped making it in stick 2 years ago.
So I bought a used one that was - of course - stick.
On a side note, stick shift is only dying in America. 85% of the cars sold in Europe are stick shift. In fact most of the rest of the world drives stick shift. Its only in North America where automatics are so dominant (95%).
I rented a car in Germany 8 years ago, and it was a stick, the memories flooded back.
China (the world’s largest car sales market by far) is about 65% automatics and rising.