Quote Originally Posted by Schwann145 View Post
Arguments in the vein of, "it's worse than X feat," or, "this background does the same thing," or, "it's no better than basic Skill rolls," are all arguments that work to seriously undervalue the ability and paint it as pretty useless.

No one has said the actual words, "it's a useless ability," but the dog-whistling about its uselessness has been pretty loud.

In truth, it's a very strong ability that just happens to be ill-suited to typical "adventure/combat heavy" D&D play. This makes it unpopular, but not weak or useless.
An ability that is inherently ill-suited to the way most people play the game cannot possibly be "very strong." That alone makes it situational at best, never mind the fact that even when the ideal situation for it arises, there are far less costly alternatives.