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...when I was a kid in the 50's and 60's, 3 speeds were about all we ever saw in a multi-geared bike. Ten speed bikes, mostly low end Peugeots started showing up at the end of the 60's and were the bicycle of choice in the 70's.
So by the time I hit college in the early 70's, there were a gajillion 3 speed bikes like Raleigh Sports languishing in thrift stores and getting thrown away, because everyone knew that more speeds was better. There used to be one section out at the old landfill dump on Gerber road here that was nothing but 3 speed bikes. They buried it under dirt when they moved the landfill to a larger location out in the county.
But if anyone ever does an architectural dig out there, they'll hit a layer of 3 speed bikes that demonstrate your original premise is a little off. They caught on, but by the time you were mechanicking, people were not paying to get a shop to fix them.
If you couldn't fix it yourself, you threw or gave it away and bought a derailleur bike with more speeds. Because everyone knows that more speeds are better. Since I
could fix them myself, these are the bikes that got me through college and the early 70's, if for no other reason than that they were cheap (almost free), and nobody would steal them.
Anyway, that's how I remember it. You'll have a difficult time convincing me otherwise.
