> Mercurial was a better DVCS launched around the same time as git but it lost out, not because "worse is better" but the network effects spreading out from the of the linux kernel itself.

Yeah. I was using Mercurial and, reluctanctly, had to switch to Git. Now don't get me wrong: I was forced to use both CVS and SVN in a thankfully very distant past so I love Git. But I do miss Mercurial. We switched exactly for the reason you mentioned: Git simply won the market.

Git won, Magit is awesome. Then all the Github and whatnots. It's Git, Git and Git.

And never bet against Linus, either: the world runs on Linux (and that's a good thing) and every tech company in the world uses Git. That's just how it is.

Mercurial was a tiny bit better but not that much better that it'd compensate for the entire ecosystem and people gravitating towards Git.