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It's the Mac equivalent of thumbs.db from Windows.

Serves a purpose on one OS, and that OS hides it from view by default.

Windows have moved on. They are now stored in \%userprofile%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer. Apple need to fix it too.

Are these really the same? Seems to me that thumbs.db is just thumbnail cache, which is just redundant data and can be lost when copied, while .DS_Store stores user data associated with folder (like icon positions), so they should be kept when copied.

It's just as disposable as thumbs.db.

The Finder won't remember you choosing custom view settings for that folder, or if you have assigned custom positions for icons in that folder. Neither loss is problematic.

If you are accessing shared directories, you can simply turn off storing that data in the shares, completely.

That doesn't change the concept or it's long history of use on Windows.

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