Go is a compiled language with comparable performance to Zig/Rust/C in a lot of use cases. It's heavily ergonomic for network/server side programming, it's safe, easy to use with a tiny footprint.
Rust is not only or even primarily used in embedded or driver programming. Indeed, I see more user space software built in rust than in embedded nowadays. As for Zig, it's so new and alpha that it didn't even find a niche yet. Rust also hasn't yet found a specific niche. It's all over the place in GUI, networking, embedded etc. which isn't a bad thing, to be clear.
It might be harder to do embedded in Go but that's not the point here, is it? It's about safety. Go has a special place in that it is compiled, easy to learn, quite performant for most tasks, and safe to boot.
> I can believe that abstractions prevent errors, but can't a language allow footguns but have syntax that makes them easy to detect?
What would be the point though? If a language can detect footguns, it's time to prevent them which is what Rust does, essentially. Footguns are rarely useful and there's always an alternative way. For these rare cases, Rust includes the unsafe escape hatch but then all bets are off. Don't expect the compiler to help you if you are intent on going down that road.