Hi there! One of the lang designers here.
That's been part and parcel for C# for over 10 years at this point. When we added `?.` originally, it was its nature that it would not execute code that was now unnecessary due to the receiver being null. For example:
Settings?.SetRetryPolicy(new ExponentialBackoffRetryPolicy());
So this feature behaves consistently with how the language has always treated this space. Except now it doesn't have an artificial limitation on which 'expression' level it stops at.
I get that the language syntax is now (slightly) more regular.
But also, reading the code will mean keeping track of (slightly) more possible outcomes.
Sure. But that was the case prior to this feature as well. Previously you'd have to store the variable somewhere and null check it. Those could all lead to different outcomes. This just encapsulates that pattern safely in a regular manner. :)