The schism of dnd5e community : the adventuring day and balance

I'm not here to make a point or start a war or anything, but it is something many people seems unaware of, and I realised it is a schism of the community, a fracture that divide us in the way we see and play the game; it is a fracture of understanding, so I hope I can clarify things and bring understanding. Tl;Dr is at the end.

This fracture is about the adventuring day. There are the people who understand it, play by it and like it, and there are the people who don't like it, or don't understand it. It is a binary matter : either you are against the adventuring day or you are for it. And it is binary because it is a core, a fundamental design element of 5e. And I think this is the point of misunderstanding : the adventuring day is fundamental to 5e. There is no way around it. And if you don't understand or don't use it correctly, the game will be horribly balanced. It will be fundamentaly broken. Most of 5e balance depends on the adventuring day.

But you know what? It's fine even if you hate it! It doesn't mean you're wrong or anything. It merely means that the rules are not adapted for your playstyle. They are fundamentaly not adapted. But there are other rulesets that "fix" this exact "problem". Their design is centered around encounter balance. It works infinitely better than 5e for single encounter balance, simply because it's meant for it. Pathfinder works like this and it gets only praises from people who prefer this.

The problem arise when people play 5e but don't play by the adventuring day and want balance out of the game. Bad news: it will never happen. 5e cannot be balanced without the adventuring day. Because it affects too many things. Most spells for example are balanced around it. Short rest vs long rest classes are balanced around it. Damage values, hit dice, CR and encounters balance, they're all based on the adventuring day.

Notice that I'm not saying that the game is perfectly balanced. It certainly isn't. What I'm saying is that you cannot balance it if you don't understand the adventuring day. That's why the easiest, although certainly not perfect, fix for most people with a balance problem will usually be the gritty realism rest rule.

I could talk about resource management, or the spells, or the adventure layout. They're all tied to the adventuring day. But it would only dilute the important matter here.

Two clarifications seem important about the adventuring day : first, it is not about the number of encounters in a day. It is about the xp value of the encounters. Second, all encounters don't necessarily need to be on a drawn map. Usually only the most important encounters require a map. The special encounters that are particularly important and deadly. Making encounters in theater of the mind is exceptionally faster than on a map with tokens. The dmg has a chapter about it, and the whole chapter is important. Xanathar's guide to everything also has something about it, but it's only for fast medium to hard encounters building. The books don't tell absolutely everything. Some details only transpire from everything, which is why the whole chapter is important.

Tl;dr/conclusion: So that's what I wanted to say: the adventuring day is not a mere feature of 5e, it's fundamental pillar of its balance. There are people who like it, and there are people who don't, or don't understand it. It's fine, but you should be aware of it and try to understand it if you have any pretention to talk about the balance of the game. There are other rulesets that implement a per encounter balance, and they would be much more suited for people who don't like the adventuring day.

Have a nice day in the forgotten realms or anywhere else.

PS: I must add a little thing : the adventuring day is NOT about 6 to 8 encounters per day. If you think like this, you don't know what it is about and you should read the DMG. The adventuring day is about xp of the monsters you fight and the party levels.