When printing s1, s2, then s3:

It does exactly that, yes: https://go.dev/play/p/rs2FeK_QUjs

    [a b c]
    [a b c x]
    [a b c y]

But maybe it doesn't: https://go.dev/play/p/Na-eL0sOV9e

    [a b c]
    [a b c y]  <- this is now "y"
    [a b c y]

So... maybe they share the same backing array? Lets try setting s2[0] to "z" after appending with the original code: https://go.dev/play/p/mAB-gUb0shB

    [a b c]
    [z b c x]
    [a b c y]

Apparently not. But also apparently yes? https://go.dev/play/p/k1ciGzyS2gc

    [z b c]    <- this changed too
    [z b c y]
    [z b c y]

Let's try appending just one more item before redoing ^ that example, where they all shared the same data: https://go.dev/play/p/5JneXHMeUjx

    [a b c]
    [z b c x x2]
    [a b c y y2]

Notice that in all of these examples, I haven't explicitly declared a length or capacity. There's nothing "funny looking" or clearly intentionally allowing these different behaviors, it's just simple, very-common slice use.

.... so yeah. This is a source of a number of hard-to-track-down bugs.