I was not saying anywhere that people don't or shouldn't care about the quality of their code. I was just pointing out that, whether we like it or not, "quality" is just one of the factors that goes into the mix of "things to optimize of". Other factors like "time" and "effort" and "efficiency" and "compatibility" and even trivial stuff like "familiarity" play a role - or else you'd have formal proofs written in TLA+ or Alloy or the like, before writing any system; And you'd have people immediately switch to safer languages like Rust (which is obviously not happening at scale).

The GCC/Webkit examples were not the best examples, but were nevertheless easily available examples that made one particular point: OP's comment was self-contradictory.

> Most C++ developers care greatly about the quality of their code

Not at our org. Though I know a couple of die hard fans that will eat you for lunch if you do something stupid or ugly.

Webkit TBH wasn't a great example, since it's arguably a piece of software that would benefit from being developed in Rust. That said, the point is that we don't need "one language to rule them all" - C++ has made some tradeoffs, that will not be ideal in all circumstances/for all projects. Trying to change the tradeoffs because of a handful of projects (like Webkit) would be better suited to new tradeoffs is not necessarily the right choice for the language itself, or its community of users. Things are not so simple, "There are 2 factions of C++, those that agree with me and are right, and those that disagree and are wrong".