How to say this in a non aggressive, non condescending way…

You're stupid.

The thing stay open and out of the way. If it's in your face when you drink from the bottle, it means you lack the ability to rotate a loose plastic ring 90° (or even the whole bottle). If it's in the way of your pour, same thing.

They are as unobtrusive as it gets; and you going out of your way (with rage, it seems) to do something tedious like forcibly ripping them off or cutting yourself on smooth plastic instead of looking at it and moving it, effortlessly, in any position that would not hinder you, is the paramount of silliness.

They are awesome!

The issue I had with them at first was that I thought you had to rip it off halfway, then it was annoying as hell, but if you just unscrew it and fold it open untill it locks open it works great!

To close you just have to pull it up slightly to get it over the opening and then srew it closed

So happy we don't have these caps

Do people not carry pocket knives anymore? This seems like a non problem to me. I can cut this off in a second or two.

Edit: to the downvoters: could you explain why my question is so bad.

I like to break off all but one leg so the cap rotates around and sits against the bottle.

It's absolutely fine, it was mildly annoying the first two times and now in glad I don't have to hold the cap while drinking.

The things that annoy us are things we are not used to. There are hundreds of things in your life that are equally annoying but since they have always been that way you don't notice them. That's why babies are the way they are. Everything us new and annoying.

I had the same instinct to tear them off but I told myself to not be a toddler and just got used to it within a week.

I burn one (1) tire for every one (1) of these I have to deal with

I thought this is just a sort of "seal" to make sure your the first to open the bottle. I just rip them off.

Seriously, in the end it boils down to this: "I hate these things with all the "first world problems" rage I can muster ".. Don't you guys have other problems in your life? There you are, raging against a bottle cap.

Like another poster said and showed with a picture before: the cap can be tucked in at the side and voilà! Drinking can be done as it used to be..