Originally Posted by
icemilkcoffee
Most new bikes are sold without pedals so you can put your own preferred pedals on there.
The real question is why they don’t do the same with saddles.
The boring, practical answer. Pedal take a couple of minutes to screw on. Seats, more like 10. Bike looks completely "wrong" without a seat. Customer cannot stand/sit over it and reach forward for the handlebars.
Now, if every manufacturer used 27.2 for their seat tube ID, shops could have several seats pre-set up and ready to go. That would be cool! But I think the marketplace is happy sticking to their motto of "We have standards. Really good ones. And lots of them. (So there.)"