Originally Posted by
Schwann145
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.