SVGs that feel like GIFs

If the target is a GitHub readme, then you can embed a video directly. eg https://github.com/paulirish/git-recent#readme

That said, OP's SVG trick may be a smarter choice if the content is a terminal capture.

The nice thing about videos is the play/pause/slider UI. Some platforms do add play/pause explicitly to GIFs, using some JS, but as far as I know (and you would know more), that's not built into browsers yet. That's been one of the reasons I often end up using videos instead.

When I've personally animated SVGs for use in RevealJS presentations, I tend to use CSS animations that I could control with JS if I wanted.

If this gets widespread use, browsers will catch up and in 5-10 years we will have pause buttons! ;)