Croc: Securely transfer files and folders between two computers

one thing that gets me is this should be one of the most basic tasks between two machines and it has been increasingly, systematically abstracted from us, to control what channels it goes through, if it even goes through at all.

Sounds like Magic Wormhole (https://magic-wormhole.io/). The readme acknowledges Warner at the end.

Key differences seem to be resumable transfers and proxy support.

Another is a single binary, whereas MW is in Python, but there’s now https://github.com/magic-wormhole/magic-wormhole.rs

I appreciate that the project acknowledges its inspiration. I wish it were more common for projects to provide detailed comparisons with similar ones for people trying to choose.