For decades, cat has been one of the most fundamental Unix utilities. It does exactly what its name suggests: concatenates files and prints their contents to standard output. It is fast, simple, predictable, and available on every Unix-like system. I used it daily without ever questioning it.
Just like vim for editing files or locate for quickly finding them, cat was one of those essential tools you take for granted. You know it works, you know it’s reliable, and you rely on it every day.
Then I replaced it with bat.