The submission includes over 400 domains for the federal only list. That is more than "some obscure ones"
> nor have I ever seen a non-US-government site on .gov
How often are you going to non-US-government government sites? Being an American I could imagine you hardly if ever interact with any other government sites so maybe that could be attributed to selection bias.
The number has nothing to do with how obscure they are.
> Being an American I could imagine you hardly if ever interact with any other government sites
I have interacted with them many times. (1) to fill out various Covid-related entry forms when those were widely required, (2) to apply for visas, (3) purely out of curiosity (e.g. I’m sometimes curious what travel warnings/advisories other countries’ foreign ministries put out and how they compare with our own).
Not the OP, but also American. For me it's clear because I've never seen a US government site on a non-.gov domain (though apparently some obscure ones exist as this submission points out), nor have I ever seen a non-US-government site on .gov.