I use tap cold water for most loads. When I use powder I dissolve it in a cup in a bit of hot water before mixing it with the cold. It does a better job of cleaning like that.

If I was super rich I’d probably still use cold water so the clothes lasted longer, but I might switch to liquid detergent so I don’t have to dissolve.

Not needing to measure is convenient. It not like the dishwasher were you have an area to put it in that gets the right amount and of course the amount varies based on load so it would be pretty hard to.

Its all marketing, the powder v liquid is a fair consumer product debate (the different formats allow for different chemistry, but by weight/price, powerd is most efficent), but the pods for dish and clothes washers are meant to be as inefficent of a storage method as possible to get you to buy more product.

The youtube channel Technology Connections has several hours of midwestern rants about how bad pods are.

And it’s getting harder to find powder. Try finding powder dishwasher detergent… locally, nothing.