`git init` itself hints that you should globally configure an initial branch name in your git config, and suggests "main", "trunk", and "development" as alternatives. It will continue to make this suggestion until you make a choice. Here's the full output from `git init` with no additional config on my machine:
hint: Using 'master' as the name for the initial branch. This default branch name
hint: is subject to change. To configure the initial branch name to use in all
hint: of your new repositories, which will suppress this warning, call:
hint:
hint: git config --global init.defaultBranch <name>
hint:
hint: Names commonly chosen instead of 'master' are 'main', 'trunk' and
hint: 'development'. The just-created branch can be renamed via this command:
hint:
hint: git branch -m <name>
Initialized empty Git repository in /private/tmp/test/.git/
I think people that set this actually get to that point because they don't want to keep seeing the warning, and "main" is as good a value as any. In light of this, your harsh moral ascription seems fairly silly.
I'm not sure which "this" you're referring to here, but I don't think there's anything wrong with choice. It's like being prompted to choose a browser. Some people choose the default, others prefer Firefox.
There is a problem when the choice creates confusion and randomness. Not that projects used the main/master branch consistently... In some it is the development branch. In others, it is the stable branch. And the default branch you get upon cloning the repo is something else still (one of those, or something else entirely). With git supporting different workflow styles, it would be hard to demand consistency. But a little consistency would be nice.
When I archive repos from Github, I keep track of which branch the API says is default. Otherwise there might be no way to figure it out in the future!
