> If you’d like to argue that version control should be centralized, shallow, and sparse by default then I agree.

I get your sentiment, but I know how working with e.g. SVN feels. Just doing "svn log" was a pain when I had to do it. The "distributed" aspect of DVCS doesn't prevent you from keeping central what you need central. E.g. you can have github or your own hosting server that your team is exchanging through.

The main point of distributed is speed and self-sufficiency which is a huge plus. E.g. occasional network outages and general lack of bandwidth are still a thing in 2026 (and remain so to some extent for the foreseeable future).

Now, could git improve and allow some things to be staged/tiered/transparently cached better? Probably, and that's where some things like LFS come in. I don't have a large amount of experience in this field though, because what I work with is adequately served by the out-of-the-box git experience.

Then just do git pull --unshallow whenever you see fit. I normally don't do --depth 1 because cloning repositories is rarely my bottleneck. Just saying that when you need a relatively fast clone time, you can have it.