Because that's exactly what it is, and it's not. When I explain git to newbies in this way, it's like something clicks in their brain and they just start to "get it" as well.
But then once you get the mental model you spend the other 90% of the time figuring out what magic incantations are needed to transform the graph in the way you want.
The sad thing is you can't just "figure it out." Most folks do "good-enough" after some coaching and memorizing a limited set of commands needed for their workflow-- until something unexpected happens.
It could be a typo, or trying something new, or forgetting/misunderstanding the intent of some counterintuitive command, or maybe cleaning up an existing problem. All those things can easily put someone in a deep rabbit hole of inside git book or, worse, google search.
Well it's understandable. Moving nodes in a graph (a tree, really) has a lot of side effects. Couple that with multiple people trying to keep things in sync(ish) and it gets super complex.
