I think your take is a bit extreme.

Currently their statement (regardless of the questionable justification) is largely correct, no major c++ projects have been written in a safe subset and no real work has really started yet. It isn’t practical.

I do agree with you that a safe form of c++, once fully implemented and not frustrating to use, could easily become viable, the feature can be added. But that’s still years away from practical usage in large project, and even when done, many projects will stick to the older forms, making the transition slow and frustrating.

The practical result is that he’s sort of right, if you just add the word “currently” to his statement.

Otoh, I do agree with you that rust cannot be the sole answer to this problem either, it’s almost as impractical to rewrite codebases in rust as an as-yet unfinished safe form of C++. Only time and lots of effort can fix this problem