The number one audience for commit messages is yourself.
If you don’t have respect for your future self, don’t expect me to have respect for you.
If you don’t have respect for your future self, don’t expect me to have respect for you.
The only time I've ever regretted not writing better messages on personal projects is when they eventually became shared. Which is like, twice, in a decade or so and wasn't even a big deal in those cases.
So when I'm writing commit messages, it is exclusively for other people.
(And sure, you could also say that I should have added better documentation back in 2014...)
Being a good communicator is very commonly the main difference between "moving up" in one's career. Quotes because i don't want this to be a debate about IC vs management tracks.