The benefit is, what if I don't like four spaces as indentation? What if I like two? Why do other get to force their aesthetic preferences on me when there already exists the tab character, whose apparent width is configurable?

> causes pointless debates

yes, having languages establish an immutable standard for tabs vs spaces has clearly ended all debate over them.

But it actually kind of has ended this nonsense in the go community, and to a lesser extent in the rust community.