Earlier quoted context omitted.
How often do you handle files large enough to observe a difference between grep, ack, ag and rg ? I'm willing to bet (and happy to lose) that most people, even in the subset who use grep "a lot" (defining "a lot"...), wouldn't see a significant improvement. They are people (I'm betting fewer) who need speed above all other concerns, and those people already make it to the top 1000.
The popularity of ripgrep, ag, ack, etc., is an object lesson in "defaults matter." I don't say this in the prescriptive sense, i.e., "hey, you, you should care about defaults!", but rather, in the descriptive sense, i.e., "there are a lot of people out there that care about the defaults." The second lesson to learn is that people care about the difference between "results are instant" and "there is a bit of noticeab…
Second, I include myself in the users of ripgrep (and the silver searcher before), I also dislike the slight waiting time when I have a better alternative.
Third, I'd like one those to be a default package in Debian.