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Once upon a time, size() wasn't required to be constant-time. This showed up in some standard library implementations of std::list::size which actually did count all the things.

The painful ABI break at C++11 is a big part of why implementors were so opposed to allowing another ABI break in C++20.

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It's also why other people in the C++ community are opposed to ABIs themselves.

The live-at-head model really only works well in a cloud computing or JIT environments. It really shouldn't have been a surprise to find that this model is unpopular outside of those narrow use-cases.

in my personal experience it also works great for desktop software

That depends. It’s awful for the libraries that your OS provides to support your desktop app, for example.

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