Reference counting is a form of GC / automatic memory management [1] but it’s ok, it’s a common mistake to make. What’s less ok is this absolute intransigence in persisting to believe that memory leaks aren’t possible in tracing GCs but only when playing the same definitional games you accuse Rust of doing by limiting the types of things you count as leaks. For example, if I implement a cache as Map<String, Object>, that’s a memory leak if you define memory leaks as retaining memory longer than you’d actually need if the goal is to have just a single instance of a value for key live (because it’s not using a weak reference) or forgetting to delete/evict from the cache. Bad software design can result in memory leaks and defining it as not a memory leak because a live reference to an object exists somewhere is just playing the definitions game [2]
You have misunderstood both the concept of a memory lwak and the concept of automatic memory management. Good job!
No, reference counting is not garbage collection. I am fully aware of the ridiculous claim that it is, promoted by people like you. I fundamentally disagree. It has none of the same properties and doesn't work anything like GC.
Multiple very talented and very knowledgeable people have tried to help you understand and these are people with firsthand knowledge of the discussion at hand (I’m not counting myself because Steve and the other know language design and Rust better than I do). You insist on doubling down on your position instead of considering the possibility you’re wrong. Not much more I can do here. You can only lead a horse to water.
I consider whether I am wrong often. It happens to be that I am not. It is quite haughty and rude of you to assume that I haven't considered it here just because I disagree with you.
There isn't much more you can do here because you are completely wrong. Instead of facing reality (that Rust, useful as it may be, only prevents a narrow class of correctness issues of varying importance) you double down on its marketing spin that all the things it fixes just happen to be all the important safety-related ones.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garbage_collection_(computer...
[2] https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4987357/can-there-be-mem...