[tarlinian]

Isn't the real reason to use char8_t over char that it that char8_t* are subject to the same strict aliasing rules as all other non-char primitive types? (i.e., the compiler doesn't have to worry that a char8_t* could point to any random piece of memory like it would for char*?).

[pkasting]

At least in Chromium that wouldn't help us, because we disable strict aliasing (and have to, as there are at least a few core places where we violate it and porting to an alternative looks challenging; some of our core string-handling APIs that presume that wchar_t* and char16_t* are actually interconvertible on Windows, for example, would have to begin memcpying, which rules out certain API shapes and adds a perf cost to the rest).

[vitaut]

The main effect of this is that some of the conversions between char and char8_t are inefficient.