Folders can be compressed archive files with the right OS/fake filesystem combination, although that's mostly ease of use. The main 2 reasons for an archive fi

Folders can be compressed archive files with the right OS/fake filesystem combination, although that's mostly ease of use. The main 2 reasons for an archive file are giving to someone else, or compression. The FS can do compression these days, so it's mostly about giving 1 file to someone else, not 1000. Using archive files to avoid excess file wastage seems like a bad idea, make the FS better instead