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Originally Posted by Unbeliever
It is only useless if it has or serves no purpose.
yup, cat's purpose is to join files, and cat "filename" | <someothercmd> serves no purpose except to waste time "opening" another process
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In the past I've found that with new shell users it is easier to explain commands piped together rather than explain redirection. Therefore the purpose is simplicity.
<, >> , > and | are all taught as basic shell operations. we use >, >> often to redirect to files.etc.. same with < for input.