I'm guessing Irish people and Scottish people probably care... "Pedantry"? Or just the correct use of the English language?
Education, innit? That is how it is. After 12 years of writing, editing and publishing copy on whisky (and now and again on whiskey), I care, or at least I did. Putting in or omitting an "e" refers to a different drink. It's not all the same stuff, and it isn't all made in the same way.