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> IMO there's no excuse for new software sticking dotfiles in my homedir in 2026.

Agreed, and also, tinfoil hat time:

I believe they opt for this so that state and config files don’t need to be distinguished (it all goes into ~/.appname the same). It’s still not an excuse, but maybe laziness is the reason?

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I'd also add that convenient recursive folder creation was only added relatively recent for many languages (eg: "std::filesystem::create_directories" was only added in C++17). And since "~/" is pretty much guaranteed to exist, the fewer folders you needed to create, the less code you had to write.

I think underuse/under-marketing of XDG_STATE_HOME is a contributing factor. Developers see XDG_DATA_HOME and XDG_CONFIG_HOME and, following the spec, don't feel like their app's files conform to either definition. It's easier to just not bother. Neovim now uses all 3 and it's very nice IMO.

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