That's just not true. In C++ you can use std::string everywhere and everything will mostly "just work". In Rust there are 5+ string types that are each subtly d

That's just not true. In C++ you can use std::string everywhere and everything will mostly "just work". In Rust there are 5+ string types that are each subtly different, support subtly different operations and cannot be used interchangeably. The standard library will hand you different types of strings depending on which functions you are calling, so you cannot avoid learning about all of these types either. Now in many ways the Rust design is nicer for low-level programming, since it allows you to avoid making copies all over the place, and has certain added safety benefits around e.g. unicode validation. But it is certainly way more difficult to use than std::string. When I was learning Rust it certainly took me a while to wrap my head around all of these string types and their various limitations - and I have a low-level programming background and understand exactly why all of these string types exist and why these limitations are there. I have to imagine this will be a major road-block to learning Rust for people from e.g. a Python or Javascript background who are not familiar with all these low-level details.