Windows does have symlinks and hardlinks that work very similarly but are only exposed via a built in cmd command. That said no one uses them.

I use them. They're also heavily used by the OS itself -- the entire WinSxS folder structure is a whole lot of symlinks.

It is? I thought it was hard links.

My work uses symlinks to avoid re-downloading 3rd party libraries in different Perforce branches.

I used to use them (directory junction points) quite a bit back when 64GB SSDs were still expensive and I wanted to redirect a few folders without changing my folder structure.

Nowadays, the most common use I've seen is as the Windows implementation of 'npm link' for Node.js developers.

I was being a little over dramatic windows has like 1B installs obviously someone "uses" them.

I know but the semantics are different.