Because it's the most underrated marksmanship tool ever. You can easily fire off a thousand rounds without even getting out of bed or spending a penny. Range time is what takes you from shooting competently to shooting better than everyone else. Everyone likes to hate on airsoft but that's only because they don't want to admit their thousands of dollars invested didn't buy them any skills and a 12 year old with a $30 springer can outshoot them and smoke them in cqb. The only way to be an expert is to shoot all day. The only way to do it for free is airsoft. Even if a thousand rounds of 22lr was only $50, that's not sustainable every single day. That's an extra $350 a week in your pocket for the same training. You can shoot while you shit, brush your teeth, get dressed, ect. By the time you find the keys and get dressed to hit the range I've already got 500 bb's down the tube. Even just shooting during commercials is enough to bring you from minute of man at 25 yards down to one hole groups a couple years down the road. Just like doing 5 pushups every hour will make you jacked, firing a mag every hour will make you a dead eye. You get some solid hours behind a springer and you will never struggle to rack anything. You get some solid hours behind a flexy stacky spongy plastic-y heavy airgun trigger then you won't ever struggle with trigger control again. There is no projectile launcher that has ever existed more grip-sensitive than a pellet gun. You spend some hours behind one of those and your grip will always be consistent. Nothing will teach you better breath control than a .40 blowgun and nothing is better for learning Kentucky holdovers and instinctive shooting than a wrist rocket. You can sleep on airsoft, but I hope you never get into a gunfight with someone who didn't. It's a complete game changer that puts you on an entirely different level from guys who buy a box or two of ammo to shoot on the weekend.