Exchanges reduce risk and make things easy for casual users. By casual, I mean people who just want to invest and don't care much about the mechanics of bitcoin

Exchanges reduce risk and make things easy for casual users. By casual, I mean people who just want to invest and don't care much about the mechanics of bitcoin which was always going to be ~99% of users. What are the other options? Using an exchange is risky (or at least seems risky to me, a person with almost zero crypto experience). Bitcoin ATMs? I know they exist, I've never personally seen one. Handing cash to a stranger? Definitely risky.