Middle click paste is a very useful feature for a lot of people, but new linux users are not those people.
I personally switched two years ago, and got several people I know to switch too. Everyone I know who switched (including me) was confused by middle click paste.
It’s a hard to intuitively understand action (took me several months until I understood it took the selection for some reason) that is very easy to trigger accidentally, and that duplicates existing functionality.
The people who like it already know it exists, and could just toggle it on.
Of course, on distros not aimed at beginners, like say, debian, it should remain the default.
Another take: the discussion shows that quite a lot Linux users use this feature because it makes them more productive. If that feature is hidden away new users will probably never find it. Linux is not the same as Windows (which is why people flock to it right now in the first place) and thus has a learning curve. And I think that’s ok. We don’t have to make it more like Windows, people have to learn how to use it.
Like I kept surprising coworkers on windows with “witchcrafty” key combinations like ctrl+c, win+d, ctrl+s…? The middle clic paste would be roughtly as well hidden as those arcane shortcut. If users won’t “discover” it, better not let them paste random stuff unknowingly at least.
My daily job is win+e alt+d ctrl+v lol. People look at me weird when I rapid fire them and get to a server location before they even right click copied the filepath.
And im not in IT or anything, always wanted to be though! Most People just dont have computer curiosity like us.
While I agree we dont need or want to make linux like windows, im VERY fast on mint cinnamon because all the key combos and the gui make sense to me and it works.
I tried cachyos with xfce and I was horribly slow and clunky, had to use the mouse for everything vs mint I already knew all the key commands.