On Thu, Mar 5, 2020 at 12:35 PM J Decker via Std-Proposals <std-proposals@lists.isocpp.org> wrote:
again, that is not a *(pointer), that is an instance of a class, aka an object.  '.' remains working on objects exactly the same.  and C++20 removing .unique() will fail.  there's no pointer to perform indirection on.

Smart pointers are designed to act as a better replacement for pointers, and the unified access syntax removes barriers. There isn't a whelk's chance in a supernova that the committee wouldn't insist that a new way of dereferencing pointers be carried out with smart pointers too - and if the latter isn't feasible, the former won't be perceived to be either.