Wireshark syntax is also fiddly. It's just more familiar for some folks. The first several years of my experience troubleshooting network problems happened when

Wireshark syntax is also fiddly. It's just more familiar for some folks. The first several years of my experience troubleshooting network problems happened when Wireshark didn't exist, but tcpdump did. I still have better recollection and comprehension of tcpdump syntax than Wireshark. I have to read the docs to use either these days (since I don't work at that layer of the network much anymore), but I have to read longer to make Wireshark do what I want. Sometimes "ease of use" is really just "what I'm used to". (Not saying Wireshark isn't more expressive or more powerful...it probably is. But, I usually have a very basic use case, and tcpdump can do it with a couple of flags and an address or port.)