If anything, the only value of GitHub to me personally is this vague rationale that 'people like that more' ... but I host everything on GitLab. But, what I host are really not active projects. That's the big difference possibly.
Morally I would love to stop using Microsoft products, much in the same way I’d like to stop using Meta products, but the problem is that I’m not there for the product, I’m there for the people. I can find products that better align with my values but I can’t bring along all the connections and possibility of connections
a simpler explanation is that GitHub has a simpler/better interface than alternatives, and most people already have an account.
* Whenever I come across an interesting project hosted on Github (On Hacker News, Mastodon or some such place), I usually star it. Then when I'm later looking for a library or piece of software I usually search my Github stars first for a nice pre-filtered list of options.
I know I could also use a bookmark manager to keep track of interesting non-Github projects, but that's way too high-friction and so in practice I usually forget about them.
* There's also the social feed on the homepage where you can see which repositories your friends have starred/contributed to. I don't personally use this super often but frequently I star some repository and then notice a bunch of my friends starred it shortly after, presumably because they saw it in their feed.
My final employer blocked GitHub as “social media” and rejected all arguments regarding its many other attributes. New CIO came in, heard of this, agreed it was silly and promised to have the block removed. Apparently somebody dissuaded him, because it never happened. Strange stuff.
This, mostly. Some of the contributors make mostly small (but important) documentation changes, and for them "Git" is "Github" since the UI makes all of it seemless.
Asking them to create an account on another service to do the same will leave these new contributors scratching heads
Honestly, this can sometimes be a good thing.
Creating a bit of friction for contributors can separate the signal from the noise, leading to more meaningful contributions. We're all familiar with the fiasco and annoyance of #hacktoberfest on GH, and the incessant spam in popular projects and issue trackers.
That said, the friction of Sourcehut might be too much even for people with good intentions, since it insists on a very opinionated workflow that's alien to most. The choice of hosting ultimately depends on each project's needs, as mentioned elsewhere.