I'm a big fan of measuring by weight. However, most recipes are not written that way and not everyone agrees to how much a cup of flour weighs.

I have a scale but it doesn't have the accuracy for baking. Its a spring type scale that measures in lbs and ounces. It works for weighing the final weight of dough before I divided up into buns for baking, and making hamburger patties and freezing slices of meat into sandwich portions.
When I was poorer, I didn't think a scale was worth the money. A scale used to be so much more expensive than measuring cups and spoons. Thats what used to annoy me about articles that claimed a scale was absolutely "essential". The scale mentioned above was a present. I sift my flour and measure carefully and am willing to adjust recipes by adding water or flour by the spoonful as necessary, and take notes for future attempts. A scale isn't going to compensate for dry atmosphere.
Do they still make electric scales that can be plugged into the wall? I get tired of buying batteries for everything.

I bought a fairly inexpensive Saltar scale at Ross over ten years ago. I think that I paid less than $20 for it, and it has been a workhorse. It has a small footprint and runs on two lithium batteries. I keep it in a drawer, in the cardboard outline in which it was nestled. I pull it out as needed. I like that I can toggle back and forth between metric and English weights with a button on the top. There is not a lot of warning when the batteries are low, and it will turn off unexpectedly in that case, as it did today while I was measuring flour for buns. Thus, I keep back-up batteries on hand. I've converted some of my bread recipes to grams, so that I do not have to use measuring cups. I also use it for dividing dough.

I, briefly, had a more expensive scale that my husband bought at King Arthur for my birthday, when I told him I wanted it. That scale had a larger pad for weighing dough. However, the toggle to go from metric to English was on the BACK of the scale, so I could not toggle. The batteries that came with it degenerated quickly, leaked, and ruined the scale. I swore off the expensive stuff at that point and went back to my Saltar. If I need to weigh something bigger than the pad, I put a ring I have that I use when I want to keep a mixing bowl from sliding around with the hand mixer, or I want to slant a bowl slightly to let a small amount of remaining batter come together. I put the ring on the mixer, then a plate or bowl, and put the larger stuff to be weighed inside it.

I am, like Sceptic, getting tired of buying batteries, which I seem to be doing every six months or so. KABC has a large scale that can be battery or plug in, but it would take a lot of room on the counter.

I really like scales for weighing sour cream or yogurt or peanut butter. These products include gram listings, so I work out the weight for the volume measurement. I HATE cleaning this stuff out of measuring cups. It's also handy for weighing chocolate chips and nuts if you are watching saturated fat. I even weigh the nuts I plan to eat for a snack.

Yes, scales are great.