Follow people where they post.

The gossip model is what my coworkers do behind my back when I get mouthy because I am an overworked slave

It doesn't make relays obsolete. Relays store and serve events. Nostr won't function without them. It may make the defined/static relay list in your profile obsolete, or at least less necessary. It is intended to obsolete the necessity of large relays that everyone uses.

If you follow someone, gossip will look at the relay configuration of that user and fetches their notes from those relays.

Non-gossip clients only fetch notes from relays you have defined. So if someone you follow ends up on different relays, you no longer see their posts.

Gossip helps decentralisation, as users can spin up their own micro-relays, and still have their notes found.