I don't think the parent was advocating for checking for nil before/after each function, but rather noting that this option pattern doesn't buy you any more type safety in Go because there's nothing enforcing you to check appropriately any more than there is for a pointer.

The salient rebuttal is that this pattern is a strong hint to check, whereas a pointer is ambiguous (it's unclear whether or not a bare pointer may ever be nil, but you would only use this pattern to be explicit that a check is needed). This pattern can also support value types so you don't have to worry as much about unnecessary allocations.

Is "some languages" just Rust?

Also Swift, and various functional languages too, although "exists in a separate block of memory" is basically the default there.