Godwin's law was an experiment in memetics. It's not actually a "thing" any more than people make it a thing, the progenitor was playing with putting a concept out there to see what happened. What happened was beyond his expectations.

I think its social utility has overtaken its birth story somewhat. It's a particularly reductive line of reasoning in forms of argumentation, that arguments descend to very crude and unpleasant norms quickly, and more often than people think. I think there are times it's mis-applied and times it accurately characterises the nature of debate. "it depends" basically.

We'll probably see something similar happen with "Tankie" and "CCP" and "Moscow shill" which now intrude as much, and as often as Nazi references.