From the perspective of someone who uses Visual Studio Code, but also knows how to exit vim, there are a couple reasons that most developers who prefer one of the three, at least those I’ve spoken to.

1. VS Code is a Microsoft product, and while “open source” it isn’t really open source. The core utility is but Microsoft ships the final application with some proprietary features. If this is your main gripe, then you can try VSCodium instead, which is a “fork” that doesn’t have the Microsoft additions.
2. VS Code uses Electron, which is essentially browser emulation and isn’t exactly optimized. CLI editors like the above take up far fewer resources than a Visual Studio Code instance would. Unlike point (1), I don’t think there’s really a way around this in all practicality. It’s just an unavoidable fact. You can chose to still use VS Code of course, most personal computers can easily handle the load. But many see that as unnecessary when they get the same amount of “power” from a CLI editor.
3. Plugins for the CLI applications are very powerful, and the ability to navigate using only the keyboard is by design. Many swear by keyboard-only operation of a computer because it’s faster and promotes more optimal methods of doing tasks. It forces discovery of new features and hotkeys by making things annoying to do otherwise. VS Code (and most editors) include a “vim keybindings” specifically for this reason. You’ll find that it’s a very popular method of working.

Really it comes down to personal preferences and what you “grew up” using. It’s really hard to transition into something like vim and it takes a concerted effort to switch by most users. You have to want to switch, otherwise you’ll find it too difficult a learning curve or find yourself wandering back to more “featured” applications.

There are likely more reasons out there, but these are, in my experience, the primary reasons.

If you frequently work on remote systems you frequently only get command line access, where you can still use vim/nano/emacs but not a full IDE like VS Code. In that case you might find it more convenient to learn one text editor well and forgo the IDE.

If you actually understand the programming language, libraries, problem, and think about your solution first, you can code just fine in ed, the standard text editor. Sometimes I do, I’m the third real programmer

In practice, I mostly code in Vim, which launches instantly, is completely customizable, and I can type and edit faster than in anything else. IDEs are excruciatingly slow, with all the highlighting and analysis stuff on, waiting for code completion instead of just typing it out because you know things.

You don’t need any of that.

There’s also the issue that VSCode is spyware created by Microsoft, and both things should send you running away.

They work in terminal. To me a more interesting question would be, why VSCode over PyCharm for Python for example.

One thing I haven’t heard others mention is fun. The better I get with vim, the more fun I have applying my skills to work efficiently.

I also love that I can use it with a phone keyboard and still remain highly efficient. Being able to SSH into my server on the go and not be terribly hampered in my admin and editing is pretty amazing.

Ubiquitous, powerful, flexible, lightweight, fun: it’s a pretty good mix of positives in the tradeoff for vim.

Different tasks. VSCode is littered with half-baked spaghetti code from various projects. My terminal window is for system-level non-project interactions.

I stick with terminals and vi for various day-to-day administrative things, because you never know when you’ll have to log into a different machine which doesn’t have all your software and preferences set up. I would prefer not struggle to recall keyboard shortcuts I last used 100 years ago when that happens.

It’s bad enough having ADHD and long covid to completely obliterate my working memory, without the added irritation of googling “man vi move to section”, knowing you have definitely used the command many times in the past.

Because Microsoft is The Debil.

People have a weird obsession with typing speed it seems haha

When I’m coding I tend to do more thinking than typing so I don’t see the benefit. Being able to reason about code is much easier with syntax highlighting and go to definition etc.

Vi is the default for Linux and you’re essentially forced to learn it as it may be the only editor on a server you’re working on. Then it feels like Stockholm syndrome.

I would prefer micro instead and it is cross-platform