Something that always fascinates me when this topic comes up is if you go into any OT for games such as those made by From Software, you'll see people praising the games for all kinds of reasons. These range from stuff like the level/world design, the lore of the world, armor and weapon design, the music of the games, especially in particular boss fights and speaking of which the design of the enemies and bosses themselves are another huge draw, etc. There are just so many pluses about these games that people gush about, and rightly so. And of course the difficulty comes up as well. But that's only part of the discussion and just as much if not more is spent on all that other stuff.
But yet in threads like this, all this other stuff disappears. Suddenly, it's ONLY that difficulty that matters, and the game itself would suddenly fall apart if it weren't there, or if it were there, but so much as an option, an OPTION to play it on a lower difficulty were there. All that stuff about praising the level design, the music, the monster design, the weapons, armor, etc? All vanish. Apparently, it was only ever the difficulty that mattered to begin with and any and all praise levied on those other aspects of the games were just lies since they apparently matter for fuck all if so much as an OPTION for lower difficulty were added. Nope, apparently the difficulty is the ONLY things these games have going for them at all. Music? Trash. Level design? Garbage. Music? Nothing there either. Only thing that they have going for them is difficulty.
Of course, that's pure nonsense, as you can see in any OTs for these games. There's so much more to these games than that and the idea that the difficulty is literally all they have going for them and that anything would be lost by adding even so much as difficulty options is insane to me (and quite frankly, insulting to the games and all the work that went into those other aspects of the game, and dishonest beside because, again referring to those OTs, I know that's very rarely the only part people praise). Because with those options, that hard difficulty would still be there. And not only would the difficulty still be there if people desire, but so would be the many other aspects that rightly deserve praise, like all that other stuff I mentioned.
Now, to be clear, there's nothing wrong with enjoying a game just for its difficulty. That's a very valid way of playing games, and there's nothing wrong with that at all. But nor is there anything wrong with for those other reasons, and just, say, messing around with various different weapons and builds, or just to enjoy the level design and music, or any number of reasons. And with difficulty settings, all these different players can co-exist with no harm to anyone else.
On the other hand, of course adding difficulty settings naturally comes at the cost of additional resources, for implementing them and balancing them and all that. But even there, making games more accessible by adding difficulty settings can expand the audience to more players than would have ever played the game otherwise, thus meaning more money, and that's a win-win for everyone at that point.
So I can't be against difficulty settings being added, even in games like Dark Souls. There's just so much more to gain than lose IMO.