you can detect `curl | bash` server-side and serve a different payload for those (compared to curl -O file, wget etc), hence its an effectively undetectable attack vector.

Executables on the other hand can be inspected and prodded, so the likelihood of something going amiss and consequently security agencies finding out about it is significantly higher.

neither of those is secure of course, we're just discussing different levels of dangers. And curl|bash being worse, albeit not that much

(and the -L here is the extra cherry on top. piping a redirect to a shell is just monkas)