> I don't think I'll ever use cat again if I can help it.

I just tested simple concatenation and bat is over 10x slower:

  $ time cat 1GiB 1GiB 1GiB 1GiB >/dev/null
  real 0m0.414s
  user 0m0.014s
  sys 0m0.400s
  $ time bat 1GiB 1GiB 1GiB 1GiB >/dev/null
  real 0m4.257s
  user 0m1.659s
  sys 0m2.594s

Seems like a lot of these "modern" replacements lose what the original simpler utils do well.

I don't use bat as a replacement for cat, but as a replacement for less. Sure, bat can concatenate a file, but I'd say that's not the main use. The syntax coloring of file contents is my favorite use case. Line numbers and some of the other options are useful at times too. Also, I don't think I've ever needed to concatenate multiple gigabyte sized files (yes, I am sure it exists for a lot of people, but would say it's not as common as looking at a file).

> I just tested simple concatenation and bat is over 10x slower

Seems like a recurring thing[0] with the modern alternatives.

0: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29616727

Have you tried LSDeluxe?

https://github.com/Peltoche/lsd

LSD has always been a favorite for those who like to watch the pretty colours go by.