Fair point! I would love to use the Extremely Linear Git History of the parent post.

I actually wrote a new layer on top of Git years ago (I called it git4 IIRC) and I pitched it to both GitHub and GitLab but they ignored it.

I guess I should have pitched it to the mailing list. I think I was too afraid it was dumb. Will do that at some point.

the mental model is hard for so many people precisely because all they know of git is github

That does sound like the 99% are pretty dumb then for using a tool that's not suitable for them... Or maybe it's not as binary, and Gits model with its complexity has more useful properties making the trade off worth it.

> That does sound like the 99% are pretty dumb then for using a tool that's not suitable for them...

Computing history is full of examples where technologies that are objectively not the best technologies end up being dominant. It's more about economics. (Network externalities, switching costs, ...)

Although I will admit that, with version control, there isn't even an alternative out there that is anything like an "objective winner". Each one has its problems, and it's a matter of choosing the least of the evils. -- I haven't tried any of the commercial ones though.