It depends what you’re building and who for. Release branches have a place where you are releasing software and supporting multiple different release versions

It depends what you’re building and who for. Release branches have a place where you are releasing software and supporting multiple different release versions for different clients, because you need to be able to bug-fix older versions and merge fixes forward rather than just fix current and re-release into your own system. If you only ever give a shit about ‘latest’ then you don’t need to bother with them. IMHO.