I appreciate the tutorial, but I probably do already "know" vim, but it's not part of my muscle-memory. Context switching to something like writing an email or filling out a web form really makes it not worth getting too comfortable with all these esoteric shortcuts. Do you write all of your emails in vim and browse the web on the command line as well?
From reading the rest of the replies, it sounds like the real answer is "because it's everywhere", which isn't really satisfying. I don't work on lots of machines that aren't my own (embedded/mobile space, which don't have vi installed!), so I don't actually encounter it everyday despite living on the command line.
Sorry — I never know when to assume a large amount of knowledge or a small amount of knowledge. The worst for me is "ctrl-w" to delete a word backward in Insert mode, and to delete a tab in the web browser :) Vim is in my muscle memory and it's faster for me, so that's why I use it. It might be faster for you and it might not be faster for you, and if you don't need the portability for POSIX machines it's probably not worth the time.
CTRL+W messes me up sometimes. when i'm in split screen mode with two panes i'll often tap CTRL+W twice to switch panes. very confusing when you forget to exit insert mode.
> Do you write all of your emails in vim and browse the web on the command line as well?
Yes! I use mutt + vim. Composing emails in a textarea is a terrible experience by comparison. (Respect to emacs mail mode users, that’s a great option too.)
I also use w3m for browsing technical stuff, and use tmux for copy & paste into vim.
From reading the rest of the replies, it sounds like the real answer is "because it's everywhere", which isn't really satisfying. I don't work on lots of machines that aren't my own (embedded/mobile space, which don't have vi installed!), so I don't actually encounter it everyday despite living on the command line.