I think most people here are only looking at cursive as a writing method only. When you're a kid, you're not only learning how to write (or history, or multiplication tables, or playing a recorder, etc.), you're always meta-learning. Cursive also helps you develop fine motion; history helps you train your learning of boring topics, retain them and link them; and so on.
I must concur, I dreaded cursive as a kid. My writing was never "tidy" though it was always very readable, and my teacher bugged to the point I asked my mother for a laptop to do my homework (this was in early 00s, in Argentina, so this was never a real option). I kept using cursive through university, as it was the fastest way to handwrite for me, and I keep using it nowadays, although not handwriting every day. I believe (although this is a counterfactual) I would be even more clumsy today if I hadn't learnt cursive.
I must concur, I dreaded cursive as a kid. My writing was never "tidy" though it was always very readable, and my teacher bugged to the point I asked my mother for a laptop to do my homework (this was in early 00s, in Argentina, so this was never a real option). I kept using cursive through university, as it was the fastest way to handwrite for me, and I keep using it nowadays, although not handwriting every day. I believe (although this is a counterfactual) I would be even more clumsy today if I hadn't learnt cursive.