if regular ssh is available, nothing stops people from building pipes with tar on both ends. This will be integrated into additional tools (future "show HN - scp replacement written in $FANCY_LANGUAGE that works even when sftp is disabled") and will be the "new way" of doing things because it won't require any configuration change on the server.
Never underestimate the inertia of server configurations.
> (future "show HN - scp replacement written in $FANCY_LANGUAGE that works even when sftp is disabled")
Too late:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Files_transferred_over_shell_p...
In KDE this is implemented as a standard protocol handler ("ioslave") and you can access it from most KDE apps using URLs like "fish://user@server/":
https://docs.kde.org/trunk5/en/kio-extras/kioslave5/fish/ind...
Removing options from "corporate" users usually results in saner choices being made, because you stop being able to bikeshed the implementation details. People have a server and they need a way to transfer files. If you have two protocols that can be used, arbitrary decisions will be made. If the readily available tools all break, there is no more decision to be made – whatever needs to be enabled will be enabled.