Wait, really? This is kind of surprising to me. Even without adaptive cruise control, I generally spend very few brain cycles paying attention to speed. My speed just varies based on conditions and the traffic flow around me, and I'm virtually never concerned with the number on the dial itself.
As a result I've never found adaptive cruise control (or self-driving) to be all that big a deal for me. But hearing your perspective suddenly makes me realize why it is so compelling for so many others.
That's how it should be ideally, but that can be a problem depending on the infrastructure around you. In my area (South Jersey) the design speed of our roads is consistently much higher than the posted speed limit. This leads to a lot of people consistently going much faster than the posted limit, and to people internalizing the idea that e.g. it's only really speeding if you're going 10+ mph over the limit. Which isn't actually safe in a lot of places!
If the design speed of your roads is a safe speed for those around you then yeah that works perfectly.
As a result I've never found adaptive cruise control (or self-driving) to be all that big a deal for me. But hearing your perspective suddenly makes me realize why it is so compelling for so many others.