> I still can’t see a case where you would want the default Python behavior (global dependencies).
It's easier to work with if you're new to Python, lazy, or just not generally familiar with the concept of a "project". Tons of people use Python through Jupyter notebooks and install libraries to play with them in a notebook, and have no real reason to think about which installations are required for the current notebook until there's a conflict, or until they want to share their work (which might never happen).
Also as you're well aware, Python existed for a long time before the virtual environment concept.
> It's easier to work with if you're new to Python, lazy, or just not generally familiar with the concept of a "project".
If you have automatic virtual environments then it doesn't matter to these personas (including the Jupyter user) unless they need multiple projects or something in which case automatic virtual environments are strictly better.
> Also as you're well aware, Python existed for a long time before the virtual environment concept.
Correct, but I don't think that supports the idea that global environments have a use case that isn't better served by project-scoped environments.