The file editing is an I/O issue, not a character issue. The I/O drivers could translate as necessary, that's the point of using an explicit character to mean

The file editing is an I/O issue, not a character issue. The I/O drivers could translate as necessary, that's the point of using an explicit character to mean "new line" as opposed to either "carriage return" or "line feed". Effectively moving away from explicit carriage and paper controls to a character that was explicitly internal to mean to generate whatever carriage/paper controls were needed on output/editing etc.