"To me, Alekhine's defense just seems like a waste of precious tempo and wasting moves by moving the knight 2, or even 3 times very early in the game while allowing white a huge space advantage. "
All this means is that you dont understand the opening.
"Space" is used in different ways.
Classically, space meant how many squares your pieces control. It's still a useful measure.
Sometimes these days when people say space, they mean the number of safe squares behind your pawns. This is also a useful measure.
In the opening though, pawn moves are never counted as development, and space afforded by pawns (the squares behind them) are doubled edged. They give room for your pieces to maneuver and thereby effectively increase their mobility (given 3 moves they'll reach many more squares). But without developed pieces the space afforded by pawns is useless, and even gives the opponent more opportunity to infiltrate.
The concept of a big pawn center early in the game being a weakness was the premise of hypermodern chess, which in spite of its name is 100 years old. You let the opponent build a big center quickly, but argue that it's a target, and attack it later.
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Anyway, so while I think both the Alekhine's and the Modern are 2nd tier openings, I think there's some mischaracterizations made in the OP. For example kicking around the knight is not losing tempo because white's pawn moves are not development. And while gaining space in the sense of safe squares behind your pawns is important, generally speaking it's better to be ahead in space in the other sense i.e. controlling squares with your knights, bishops, rooks, and queen.
To me, Alekhine's defense just seems like a waste of precious tempo and wasting moves by moving the knight 2, or even 3 times very early in the game while allowing white a huge space advantage. It is usually inferior to the modern defense, which can develop well and somewhat restrain white's center.
Anyway, that's just my opinion.
Normal Modern Defense
Modern Defense, Pterodactyl Defense
Normal Alekhine's Defense (I think)
Four Pawns Attack: Black has had his knight kicked around 3 times now, while white has a huge pawn center, though it can be attacked fairly easily.
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