I think the author put it well. Branches are an abstraction (albeit a leaky one) over refs, and abstractions are useful. Tags are also just refs, but we (and th

I think the author put it well. Branches are an abstraction (albeit a leaky one) over refs, and abstractions are useful. Tags are also just refs, but we (and the git client) assign them a different semantic meaning and functionality than branches. Using those names for different ref types creates shared meaning between people around the world. They allow further abstractions like git flow, which in turn allow (in a way) CI/CD or analysis software to build on those conventions.