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As a coffee drinker the "bizarrely addictive" comment does not resonate with me at all.

I don't really have trouble keeping myself to, like, 1.2 coffees a day. I can't imagine drinking 6-7 coffees in a day to get to 800 mg caffeine.

Unless you add ice or sweetener it's bitter and hot, so it's a lot harder to slide down the slippery slope of just drinking it whenever you're thirsty and simultaneously getting addicted to the caffeine and the sugar. To say nothing of whatever else is in the energy drinks.

Although I guess plenty of people who drive a lot do this with the sugary Starbucks drinks in the giant mugs.

I don't particularly like coffee, so it's not addictive for me as well. But neither are the energy drinks that I actually like. Conversely, there are people heavily addicted to coffee, whether you want to call that "bizzarely" or not.

So, we can haggle over details, but overall I don't see a dramatic qualitative difference.

Coffee is also slightly diuretic, so it's not a "drink to quench your thirst" drink, at least not to me. Water (plain or fizzy/flavored), milk, diet sodas, etc. fill that niche.
Probably. As I said, I've always hated coffee so I've never really had any desire to consume large quantities of it, so I can't speak to that.

I will say, though, energy drinks do become a relatively expensive addiction. A Monster energy drink can easily cost 3-4 dollars, so if I had three of those a day we are talking $10+ of cost. If you get off brands they're cheaper, but even still I think they're overpriced.

I know it's a meme that people pay like $6 for a coffee at Starbucks, but I think if you buy the coffee beans yourself or instant coffee it's relatively cheap.

$3-4 is a lot. They are 0.99 € here (tax included).
It very much depends on the brand. I was initially buying the Monster drinks at a local gas station where I believe they were $3.25.

Eventually I transitioned to the Aldi brand which was I think around $1.

I meant specifically the Monster drinks. Red Bull for example is closer to 2 € here. The cheapest Aldi energy drinks are 0.29 €.
You pay a significant markup getting it at gas stations, but looking at a Monster on Walmart.com, it's still like $2.68. https://www.walmart.com/ip/Monster-Energy-Zero-Ultra-Energy-...

I guess it's cheaper in Europe.

Drip coffee has ~40-50% more caffeine per 8oz serving than Red Bull (about 90-100mg vs 65mg). The nice thing about coffee is that the mouth-puckering tannins make it harder to absolutely pound them, like one can do easily with cans of Red Bull.
Yeah, the real problem with Red Bull is that it's caffeine-spiked Gatorade. So you're drinking to satisfy cravings but also just because you're thirsty.
A 12 oz can of Celsius has 200mg of caffeine.
You could but you'd be quite disingenuous if you did considering that coffee delivers caffeine without a bunch of added sugar.
I was drinking the sugar free energy drinks, so I wasn't getting a ton of sugar.

Still not saying it's healthy but it wasn't because of too much sugar.

Sugar free/low sugar energy drinks are really common, and most coffee drinkers I know are mixing in sugar or creamer or something in their coffee, so I don't think they're that different. Personally, as someone who is super sensitive to bitterness, coffee has never worked for me, so if I need a caffeine boost, I go for a sugar free Red Bull or a white Monster
Sugar-free energy drinks aren’t rare (at least here in Europe), and people are putting fat and sugar in their coffee as well.