pagers are sometimes more of a burden than a help. If a file is relatively short, the terminal's scrollback may be sufficient to navigate the content. A pager may not cooperate well with the terminal's UI for scrolling, and may even mess up scrollback history. And, depending on configuration, may clear the screen when it's closed against the user's wishes.

Yes, there may be flags you can throw on them to make them behave the way you want, but those flags need to be remembered. `cat` is certainly shorter to type and easier to remember than `less -X`

What about syntax highlighting? If you're only interested in viewing the file anyway, there's a decent chance that would improve your experience.

I do accept that `cat file` is not a problem, but it's interesting to discuss alternatives anyway!

Try using a pager like more, which works on dumb terminals.

I have infinite scrollback and ⌘F