Generally higher compression ratios -- distribute more payload without jacking load on download servers.

When I was a young man I lived through the .Z to .gz change. It was no big deal, you learn a new command and maybe a new flag for tar. Most users won't even need to do that because they don't use command line.

xz was the program that recently almost compromised ssh through systemd dependencies, interestingly.

For the uninitiated / uninformed, what are the implications of this.