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Nobody really uses the non-blocking channel receive operations. I didn't even know it existed until now.

Selecting on multiple channels is, however, is used very often, so this fits that paradigm quite well.

What does it actually do? Executes the body of the case for the channel which has output?

Yes, that's right, and only once. It's like a switch statement, only using inputs instead of fixed cases.

It does make sense to have the blocking version, if there's nothing else to do.

There is also a fairness point: If more than one channel is available, which one to go is selected in a fair way. This is important so a channel at the top can not flood and monopolize the selective communication primitive.

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