I am aware of that, those folders have existed as such since at least Windows XP. But only recently have I noticed consumer software placing fungible user data

I am aware of that, those folders have existed as such since at least Windows XP. But only recently have I noticed consumer software placing fungible user data in there. IIRC at one point you couldn't even open one of the "AppData" homefolder aliases, Explorer would spit out some error message and you'd have to navigate to the hidden folder or key it in manually.