But, even though you would very rarely need them, likely never for a vessel which operates close to shore, they must be maintained periodically because SOLAS, and maintenance of lifeboats is pretty dangerous because they're on the outside of a ship. So you may end up killing or seriously injuring more people by having lifeboats.
Did the designers of the Titanic write this? You're arguing having enough lifeboats for all your passengers is bad because you have to maintain the lifeboats
I'm confident that I did not design the Titanic, a ship launched before my grandmother was born IIRC, however yes, I'm saying that this trade might well not be worth it in the bigger picture, not for all the ships covered by SOLAS.
Titanic is the sweet spot for wanting more lifeboats, they had a long time, but they were in the middle of the ocean and nobody was coming to help.
If you go down very quickly lifeboats are useless. Herald of Free Enterprise could have had ten lifeboats per customer, wouldn't have made a difference, there were 90 seconds between nothing is wrong, and oops the ship is laying on its side in the water, lots of people are going to die in that scenario.
On the other hand if the port isn't far you can make for port. Despite a ship being on fire, or badly holed it may have hours left, the Titanic had almost three hours.
If the maintenance of life boats is so dangerous and even costs more lives than it is expected to save, then in my eyes it would be the right reaction to invest into safety procedures for life boat maintenance, not getting rid of life boats.
If more people are killed by installing and maintaining lifeboats than are saved, then why wouldn't it be reasonable to disagree strongly with the status quo on life boats?
They didn't argue that the maintenance is bad because its expensive. How could you miss that point? You literally quoted it in your comment:
