the people who don't use it say it's bad because......
.....IT MAKES IT EASIER?
You're missing the point. There is nothing wrong with finding the easiest or most efficient way to play something. The nature of the criticism is when people use a shortcut in lieu of learning the fretboard and learning to play the instrument, and by doing so, limit what they can do with the instrument.
Altered tunings have certain advantages, but they also have certain disadvantages. For example, let's say I tune my guitar to Bruce Palmer modal tuning (EEEEBE) instead of EADGBE. Is there anything "wrong" with this tuning? No. It's a great tuning to use if I want to play "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" or a handful of other songs, because it allows me to play some very rich-sounding, resonant chords in open positions up and down the neck.
But, even though that tuning is fantastic for that particular song and a few other songs, it is not a particularly good tuning for the vast majority of songs throughout history that have ever been played on a guitar. In fact, the very things that make that altered tuning good for certain songs make it very, very bad for others. For example, in that particular tuning, the bottom 4 strings are tuned either in unison or in octaves. This is excellent for droning open chords, but absolutely horrible for playing single-note lines, because single-note lines need to be played up and down a single string rather than across multiple strings.
There are certain advantages to standard tuning. Chief among those advantages, in my view, is the fact that there is a consistent interval of a fourth from string to string. That means that from any one string to the next, the fingerings for any particular interval are going to be the same. Want to play a fifth? No matter what note you start on, anywhere on the neck, a major third will always be one string up and one fret down from your root note. Want to play a fifth? No matter where you start on the neck, it will always be one string up and two frets up from your root note. Another advantage is that the entire chromatic scale is available with position shifts of no more than one fret in either direction (if you play 1234) or two frets in any direction (if you play 124). A one-octave major scale can be played in a closed position with no shifts if you play 1234 and shifts of no more than one fret if you play 124.
Drop-tuning has certain disadvantages compared to standard tuning. The interval between strings is inconsistent, so you lose the symmetry that standard tuning offers. Additional shifts become necessary to play certain lines. Sight-reading and playing by ear can become substantially more difficult. And probably most relevant to this discussion, drop-tuning tends to limit the player to particular keys.
There are times, of course, when the advantages of drop-tuning outweigh these disadvantages. One obvious advantage is that it allows an extension of the range of the instrument. The advantages of drop-tuning are particularly evident when playing chords rather than single note lines, as they allow the player to use the open strings to create open chord voicings that may not be possible in standard tuning. That advantage, however, is much less significant on a bass playing single-note lines than it is on an instrument playing chords.
If it's not obvious by now, I have no issue whatsoever with altered tunings as a general matter, particularly when the player is making an informed choice as to the benefits of one tuning over another. I've played guitar in standard tuning, in drop-D, in DADGAD, in Bruce Palmer modal tuning. I have a Hipshot on one of my 4-string basses, which effectively puts that bass into drop-D tuning. I also have a 5-string, which I use when I need to extend the range below D or when the drop-D creates fingerings that are impractical compared to playing the same line on a 5-string tuned in fourths.
However, in many instances, people use drop-tuning for the wrong reasons, and in ways that limit their growth as a player. For example, how many times in these threads do we see people who think that they have to play in drop C simply because their guitarist plays in drop C, without ever stopping to consider that their guitar is playing chords (or at least fifths) while the bass is playing single lines that may not require or benefit from using a drop tuning rather than a standard tuning? How many times do we see people who confuse the tuning of their instrument with the key that they are playing? Unfortunately, it's often those very same people who are the most defensive and the least receptive to having any reasonable sort of discourse on the topic.
So again, if you think that people are arguing that drop-tuning is "bad because it makes it easier," you are missing the point. There is nothing wrong with making things easier, so long as you recognize that there are often trade-offs for doing so.
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