I don't know about that. If you extend the scope to include Excel spreadsheet users, website designers, illustrators, writers and so on, version control is not common at all. Or they have something but it's a tragicomic parody of version control, such as what MS Word and Google docs provides.

That's a fair point, but now we're back to actually Rust makes better sense than C++ because the difference is much more stark if you're not already a programmer.

Some of the craziest things about C++ metastasised and are now everywhere in programming, so they don't seem as crazy - but if you're a non-programmer they will still be crazy in C++ and Rust doesn't have them.

For example why does "const" mean immutable? In Rust it means constant, like you'd expect. Why is "Hello" six units of storage space? In Rust it's five, because duh. Why does passing this HugeDoodad into a function expensively copy the HugeDoodad? In Rust it doesn't do that.

I don't think you live anywhere close to the normal world. It's like saying "all my friends have phds". I mean, don't everybody know three languages and basic multivariate calculus?

I have not in 20 years encountered a single company producing software, be it their primary product or a supporting role, that didn't use version control.

This was a thing in the early 2000s, but very certainly hasn't been the norm for a very long time now, at least in my part of the world.

If it's different where you are, you need to take immediate action and inform your company leadership of this extreme liability.

Selection effects are real.

https://xkcd.com/2501/ - of course there is an xkcd comic for this :)