it's cool that zip compression is just automatically part of so many things. like, there are better algorithms, and not everything benefits from being compressed, but as a Default Way Of Doing Things, there are worse options.
i remember that 15 years ago, if you downloaded a bunch of videogame ROMs and found out they had all been put in their own individual zips, you had to extract them all. now emulators, flash carts, and even the MiSTer all read the files directly out of the archive. I'm sure there's some overhead to this and it probably bugs the devs, but it's what needed to happen and it pretty much Just Works.
Aside from its widespread support (or maybe due to it?) Zip is also the base for a ton of file formats.
Microsoft Office docs? Zip. Java JARs? Zip. iOS app files? Zips. Nuget packages? Zips. I know there's more I'm missing but the great thing is you can just change the extension and extract.
Heck, theres's even a meme for this.
.zip is the only directory format all OSes respect
