Reasons a drive-in boat wash is inferior to a human hull cleaner:
1.- Will not clean running gear, thru-hulls or transducers.
2.- Will not remove shelled animal growth.
3.- Will not replace anodes.
4.- It's one-size-fits-all. Got an ablative paint requiring a soft touch? Bummer. Paint a little long in the tooth with spots that need some extra elbow grease? Too bad.
5.- Will not provide a condition report. Or pix. Or video.
6.- Requires that someone take the boat to the cleaning location, wait while the work is done and then return it to it's slip or mooring.
In addition to all that, these operations often have a diver on-site to get into the water after the boat has been "cleaned" to finish up all the things the machine is incapable of doing. And anybody who believes the claim that a brush will clean a hull that has no anti fouling paint has obviously never cleaned a hull with no anti fouling paint.
Here are some pix that a member posted in a Facebook group for hull divers. This boat had apparently been run though the the Sidney BC boat wash several weeks prior to the pix being taken: