Why can't binary data be inserted/displayed as ones and zeroes?

If I have a column of type binary or varbinary, I imagine the data as a sequence of bits. For example, it makes sense to me that 01001 (as a base 2 number) could be a valid value in a binary(5) column. Is there a reason why inserting and displaying binary data in this fashion is not straightforward? For example, why does SSMS convert binary data to hexadecimal instead of displaying a sequence of ones and zeroes (which in my opinion is much easier to reason about)?