Exactly. Case in point: GitHub. We trust it to provide consensus on the latest hashes that branches point to, and if you use signed commits, then you don't even

Exactly. Case in point: GitHub. We trust it to provide consensus on the latest hashes that branches point to, and if you use signed commits, then you don't even have to trust it to ensure integrity. The identity used to sign is completely controlled by you, and you can easily move to a self-hosted solution if GitHub loses your trust. Distributed consensus mechanisms are not worth it if you just design your system to (a) be auditable and independently verifiable (b) support identities controlled by the users.