[tokyodude]

Why is BASIC a great introduction to programming? Genuinely curious. It's a bad language by pretty much all computer science standards. It only has global variables. In the past it used line numbers not labels. Many Basics only allowed 2 letter variable names. It has almost no library. (I suppose those could be added but they're already available in other languages). AFAIK there is little to no tooling for BASIC (meaning no auto0completion or popup docs that many languages have now)

I grew up on basic on TRS-80/Apple II/Atari 800 and I have super fond memories of those times. You can even find lots of my BASIC code in old magazines from the 80s. But, I don't really believe those were better than today with kids with Scratch or Unity or other alternatives. Python or JavaScript (runs everywhere) etc... Maybe even PICO-8/Lua etc...

Are there some concrete reason BASIC is actually a good place to start?

[pjmlp]

I wouldn't advise unstructured BASIC, there are plenty of structured improvements to choose from.

It is easy to learn because it was the first language to come with batteries.

In some 8 bit micros it was as powerful as the underlying Assembly, only slower. So it was relatively easy to prototype.

Also the the runtime was the OS.

Nowadays a kid needs to learn how to access the development environment, probably configured by an adult and to do more complicated tasks might need some help getting libraries.

Maybe stuff like boards with MicroPython will help here.

[tree_of_item]

It's completely nostalgia. BASIC doesn't have any redeeming features except being in the right place at the right time.