@ewolff over the years I got conditioned on the UI of SmartGit. It doesn't abstract too much away but the visualization is exactly right for me. It's also the only too I know that lets me "investigate" origins of a code line even when renames or refactors are involved.
Of course most of these values require the git history to be somewhat clean. The messier the history, the less I can "see" and investigate.
There are some nice IRC frontends. TheLounge (https://thelounge.chat/) comes to mind.
I don't know about scalability of the servers though. At least Ergo, which has quite nice features that pairs nicely with TheLounge doesn't scale horizontally.
@r_alb that generalization triggers me a litte: a general stance against progress is what fuels the fossil industry, for example... people who lean fully into "we don't need solar or e-mobility; all is good the way it is".
Of course not everything sold as progress is truly progress. I don't think pinning that decision on marketing works good, though.