I agree that it does “the right thing”, that is it behaves as documented. But that “right thing” could be surprising to a human.

There’s ls -v which does “version sort” which would seem like a more reasonable default, at least for human consumption. I know it’s impossible to change now because a bajillion tools all over the place depend on the sort order.

However new tools like eza do this by default:

❯ eza
1  6   11  16  21  26  31  36  41  46  51  56  61  66  71  76  81  86  91  96
2  7   12  17  22  27  32  37  42  47  52  57  62  67  72  77  82  87  92  97
3  8   13  18  23  28  33  38  43  48  53  58  63  68  73  78  83  88  93  98
4  9   14  19  24  29  34  39  44  49  54  59  64  69  74  79  84  89  94  99
5  10  15  20  25  30  35  40  45  50  55  60  65  70  75  80  85  90  95  100