IMO it's primarily because it's a bad name. Names are important, as they reinforce your mental model. Reduce means to take away. But reduce isn't taking somet

IMO it's primarily because it's a bad name. Names are important, as they reinforce your mental model. Reduce means to take away. But reduce isn't taking something away. It's combining multiple things into one -- squeezing multiple things together. Reduce is poor verb for that. It should've been called squash. Just like squash-merge.