> There is almost no audience for any line of the commit message other than the first line.
git log would definitely show the entire commit message, so I don't see why there would be almost no audience. git blame along with git show or git log -n1 would also allow you to see the rest of the commit message for a particular line in the codebase.
git log would definitely show the entire commit message
git log could show the entire commit message, but I can't remember the last time I saw any developer whose default format wasn't a single-line one. Presumably there are some people who do prefer to see the whole message every time, and maybe that includes you, but IME that's quite rare.
One would actually have to make a change to their global git config to set the pretty setting to display oneline or add a bash alias to run git log --oneline.
By default, it shows the entire message, and, in my experience, most people aren't going to change the default behavior in one specific case.
One would actually have to make a change to their global git config to set the pretty setting to display oneline or add a bash alias to run git log --oneline.
That is true, but I literally can't think of any developer I've worked with in many years who had not done something like that. The typical display in every GUI for git repos that I've come across in recent times is also geared to single-line display, though some of them are marginally better with at least indicating the presence of additional lines than git's own one-line display formats in the CLI.
YMMV, and apparently it does, based on your second paragraph.
git log would definitely show the entire commit message, so I don't see why there would be almost no audience. git blame along with git show or git log -n1 would also allow you to see the rest of the commit message for a particular line in the codebase.