Also remember this was typed with typewriters. That gives its own set of constraints. It's quicker to type two different characters than the same character twice in a row, as you need to wait for the typebar to return enough.
This is a good visual to understand it intuitively but your finger itself has a similar issue. In rhythm games like Taiko no Tatsujin and Muse Dash you only have two distinct notes/lanes but you typically play with 4 (or more) keys. A group of 3 red notes in Taiko is way easier to play by alternating hands back and forth than by spamming one key as fast as you can with the same finger. This somewhat applies to Rock Band as well with alternating strumming being useful for long stretches of notes close together, but a lot of people just brute force their way past that without learning alt strumming. For Taiko I think the alternating is much more important and you won't last without learning it.
This is a good visual to understand it intuitively but your finger itself has a similar issue. In rhythm games like Taiko no Tatsujin and Muse Dash you only have two distinct notes/lanes but you typically play with 4 (or more) keys. A group of 3 red notes in Taiko is way easier to play by alternating hands back and forth than by spamming one key as fast as you can with the same finger. This somewhat applies to Rock Band as well with alternating strumming being useful for long stretches of notes close together, but a lot of people just brute force their way past that without learning alt strumming. For Taiko I think the alternating is much more important and you won't last without learning it.