Rice cookers are a waste of space and money, plus they’re largely a unitasker. For that money I could add to my general kitchen utensil collection that could be used for many things.
While I don’t fully agree with Alton Brown’s “no unitaskers in kitchen”, it’s a great starting point, especially for new cooks with few tools. Today I tolerate a few unitaskers because I already have a full complement of general purpose tools.
I can make rice in one of my pots in the same time a rice cooker takes - there’s no magic bullet, rice takes the time it takes. And for a new cook, learning to pay attention instead of offloading to a tool makes for great practice.
Simply put water and rice in a pan, turn on the heat, and set a timer. Of course, I had to figure out the heat and time, but that only took watching it a couple times.
I made some last night, while the rest of dinner was in the oven - because I saw the recipe had a 45 minute oven time, I knew that would be the perfect time to make the rice. Easy-peasy.