Newly released cabal 3.10.1.0 uses the XDG directory structure unless a ~/.cabal is already present.
From https://github.com/haskell/cabal/blob/master/release-notes/cabal-install-3.10.1.0.md#significant-changes:

Cabal/cabal-install now uses the XDG Base Directory Specification to store configuration, caches, and the store. Specifically,$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/cabal stores the configuration file,$XDG_CACHE_HOME/cabal stores downloaded packages and similar, and $XDG_STATE_HOME/cabal mainly contains the store of compiled packages. Further, cabal install will put executables in ~/.local/bin by default.

The dist/dist-newstyle directories are not affected.

On Windows, these XDG paths are mapped to other (hopefully) appropriate locations. See the Cabal User Guide for information.

If the CABAL_DIR environment variable is set, the indicated directory will be used to store all Cabal-related files, as in previous versions.

Backwards compatibility: If ~/.cabal already exists, this will be interpreted as CABAL_DIR=~/.cabal. This means that upgrading on an existing system already using cabal-install should not cause any change in behaviour. An existing system can be migrated by deleting ~/.cabal (possibly copying ~/.cabal/config to ~/.config/cabal/config first).

We likely need to adapt the cabal-store output to respect this change or make sure stuff lands in ./~cabal as it used to be:

Upstream issue:

• Complete migration guide to XDG directory layout cabal#8859