I think you don't cook much if you say this... We try to cook our food as much as possible and also we are at home almost all the time. At the end of the day there can easily be 2-3 pots, 2-3 bowls, 4-6 cups for tea, coffee or breakfast, a few glasses, 4 to 8 dishes, utensils and cutlery, some devices like a blender attachment and its jug, Tupperwares and some pan that I made sure it's dishwasher safe...
I could reduce a bit the number of glasses and cups by reusing them more but anyway,the dishwasher makes a big difference.
Nope, I cook and wash dishes twice a day. I eat almost exclusively from the grocery store and haven't been to a restaurant, etc., since 2020. Somebody had to die for that to happen. But my cooking is simple, and I very rarely use more than a single cooking vessel (mostly an air fryer drawer), plate and utensils. I wash dishes so quickly that I think I'd feel the same if I were cooking for four.
Oh, you sweet dishwasher podchild. When I lived the life of a bachelor and ate over the sink/kitchen counter, I could get by with a single set of dishes, one cast-iron skillet, one pot, a single set of silverware, one knife, and one spatula.
Now that I cook for 2-3 people and more on holidays, I know from practical experience that the number of dirty dishes generated and the water used quickly exceeds anything a dishwasher would use. The use of water also increases when you cook big batches of food, so you can have quick meals available for lunches and dinners when you're too tired too cook and/or broke to go out to a restaurant/takeout.
If someone tried to take away my dishwasher, I would put their head on a pike in the front yard as a warning to anyone else who tried.
The one thing I've learned from this article and the comments here is that I really should run a load every night, even if the machine isn't totally full, because there are always more dishes used than it looks like at first glance.
I could reduce a bit the number of glasses and cups by reusing them more but anyway,the dishwasher makes a big difference.