Про демагогию --- это к вам. Чисто теоретически, cargo не часть rust. На практике без cargo потянут только маргиналы, но они и от rust'а не фанатеют.

"Not liking Cargo is hard." (https://users.rust-lang.org/t/my-reluctance-about-using-carg...)

<snip>
Use Cargo.

Pretty much the entire ecosystem is based around you using Cargo. Things are not added to the standard library on the basis of "people use Cargo." The compiler's command-line interface is optimised based on the assumption that you are using Cargo. Many Rust tools are designed on the assumption that you are using Cargo.

Avoiding Cargo is not going to make your life easier, it is going to make it significantly harder.

...
</snip>
https://www.reddit.com/r/rust/comments/8ckp8w/creating_a_lib.../

Ну, и так далее, в том же духе.