That's like saying that SSH isn't more secure than Telnet unless you personally drive to the data center and verify the fingerprints of every single server by hand.

In reality, TOFU is a form of key verification and it is highly effective against MITM attacks because there's no way for an adversary to reliably determine whether or not a user is seeing a fingerprint for the first time. If at any point the fingerprint changes, the users are warned.

Users can also easily check and compare fingerprints too. They are not mutually exclusive.