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    While a useful side effect I find it highly doubtful that this was the reason. Commented Jun 17, 2017 at 23:44
  • @DepressedDaniel: What does back you up? Where is the reference you used to support your answer? Commented Apr 14, 2018 at 19:26
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    Well, writing confidential information to files or (via a pipe) to commands is certainly a good reason to have an echo builtin. But being able to still evaluate things on an otherwise "fully loaded" system or just performance of scripts are surely equally valid reasons. Commented Jul 31, 2021 at 15:03