Get out of a dialog quicky. Get out of the OS popup (e.g. File save). Get out of the current context in your editor/IDE (e.g. Search etc) Cancel something. Cmd+esc takes you to the previous up from cmd+tab (instead of cmd+shift+tab). Ever wanted to cancel drag and drop?!

Honestly the Esc key is indispensible.

> Cmd+esc takes you to the previous up from cmd+tab

I've always used cmd+~ for that

exactly -- vim users who haven't transitioned to ^[ hit it all the time

Also, this looks to me like yet another not-particularly-useful tentpole 'feature' when I really wish they would spend some quality time fixing abundant os and finder bugs.

Why transition to a double key combo rather than use CapsLock as Esc? The other quite useful "universal" key is the § key on a European mac keyboard (which is for some insane reason just under Esc where ` normally would be)

Because your fingers stay in the normal location. To hit escape, I have to either lift my left hand or rotate sharply at the wrist.

Yes, but you capslock is more accessible than the ctrl key in my opinion. I quite like the option to remap capslock to both ctrl (when used with another key) and to esc when pressed alone, that was suggested in other comments.

I only use it for escaping from a full screen view on youtube