A manufacturer should make one that auto clears after say 5 minutes. Have an option to not auto clear for the 0.1% of people who might want it to keep the remaining time for eternity.
One of the best responses so far. I want to be able to glance at my microwave and see the time, not how many seconds were left from the last thing you microwaved.
luckily I just have a cheap emerson that lets me do whatever I want to set the time so that's not an issue.
My sister though... Has one of those 'old' microwaves that sits there all arrogantly and ignores you unless you hit clear AND use the set time button just to be able to begin setting a cook time. It's very annoying and the habit of having a lazier microwave always trips me up when I'm forced to use her more pedantic older microwave
Think of it like this: the annoyance of the microwave telling me my food is done has conditioned me to do what I can to not hear it. It's not about the beep, it's about the response to the beep. When I start clearing the time and entering how long I want to cook I am already agreeing to beeps. Why do that on 2 occasions?
Another way to look at it. Ask yourself, do you have the same habits with a calculator?
Don't know about you, but I subconsciously hit clear on a calculator multiple times before using one but why would I clear the resulting number? Maybe I'm conditioned to operate a microwave like a handheld calculator.