Yeah, you shouldn't have GC in systems-level code any more than I should have lifetime concerns in application-level code. Problem is leaders end up choosing C++ for both and saying y'all should know how to deal with it.

Google also has a lot of stuff in the middle where they're fine with sacrificing a little speed for a lot more safety, but Java etc are too slow. Golang was supposed to satisfy that, but it was too big of a leap from C++.