Jeff King [off-list ref] writes:

<shrug> It seems weird and inconsistent to me that the meaning of "-h"
depends on the position and presence of other unrelated options. Maybe
it's just me. I know _why_ it's that way, but this seems like one of
those weird corners of the interface that end up confusing people and
giving Git's interface the reputation of being full of mysterious
inconsistencies. I suspect one of the reasons nobody has complained
about it is that "ls-remote" is not commonly used, and "ls-remote -h"
less so (I didn't even know it was there until this conversation).

Technically, yes, it may be weird.

I may be biased as every time I think about this one, the first one
that comes to my mind is how "grep -h" (not "git grep", but GNU
grep) behaves.  Yes, "-h" means something else, but by itself, the
command does not make sense, and "ls-remote -h" is an exception to
the rule: most sane commands do not have a sensible semantics when
they take only "-h" and nothing else.  And even for ls-remote it is
true only when you try to be extra lazy and do not say which remote
you are asking.

And that is why I think "'cmd -h" and nothing else consistently
gives help" may overall be positive in usability, than a rule that
says "'cmd -h' is for short-help unless -h means something else for
the command".