The biggest reason is super simple. Emacs works in terminal mode (really well) and can be &lt;insert pkg manager here&gt; installed pretty much everywhere.<p>If you are ever in a situation where you are working on a remote system over SSH (possibly with low bandwidth) you will appreciate it. Also your terminal is in emacs mode by default, so all your shortcuts work there as well. Finally if you are an OSX user all of your _text fields_ understand emacs shortcuts as well :).