Raymond called it 21 years ago: when you change the insides, no one notices. https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20040525-00/?p=39...

So? Linux is still mostly on ext4, and even though there's theoretically zfs/btrfs, most people are still using ext4. Debian installer still only supports ext4. ext4 might be "newer" than NTFS (2006 vs 1993), but that's a purely naming thing. If you map ext2 and ext3 as NTFS versions[1], they have similar age. Moreover from a feature set perspective they're mostly equivalent. Both support journaling and various features like sparse files and resource forks.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTFS#History

It's the painful cost of maintaining backwards compatibility.

For context, I can still install and use Winamp 2.5 from 1999 on Windows 11. That's over 25 years of backwards compatibility. Not something most people need on a daily basis but still very cool.