Interestingly, though, if you use Go 1.21 and a module declares a later version of Go, the default behavior is actually to go fetch a newer toolchain and use it instead[1]. It's a pretty cool feature, but I am a bit on the fence due to the fact that it is surprising and phones home to Google-controlled servers to fetch the binaries. That and the module proxy are for sure two of the most conflicting features in Go and I'd feel a lot better about them if Go was controlled by a foundation that Google merely had a stake in. Alas.

edit: Actually, though, I just realized what I am talking about is different than what you and your quote is talking about, which is what happens when you have a dependency that declares a different version, not the current module. Oops.

[1]: https://go.dev/blog/toolchain