Back when this post was written, I would have agreed with you. But Mara's book makes a good case for this: https://marabos.nl/atomics/memory-ordering.html#comm

Back when this post was written, I would have agreed with you. But Mara's book makes a good case for this: https://marabos.nl/atomics/memory-ordering.html#common-misconceptions https://marabos.nl/atomics/memory-ordering.html#common-misco... More importantly, when reading code, SeqCst basically tells the reader: "this operation depends on the total order of every single SeqCst operation in the program," which is an incredibly far-reaching claim. The same code would likely be easier to review and verify if it used weaker memory ordering instead, if possible... It is advisable to see SeqCst as a warning sign.