The point of semantic versioning is to give the version number more meaning than just a commit hash - to give the version number semantic meaning. It prioritize

The point of semantic versioning is to give the version number more meaning than just a commit hash - to give the version number semantic meaning. It prioritizes what the user should expect over what the developer feels about the new version. Yes, people may claim to follow a scheme, and then not actually follow that scheme, but that's not an argument against the scheme. A similar argument could be made to all schemes that try to provide guarantees based on their use. I claim semantic versioning is useful to humans. It communicates to humans what their expectations should be on API changes. That "robots" can take advantage of these rules is a bonus - and a good indication it's a good system, as creating predictable rules for things that we can then automate is rather the basis of software ecosystems.