It has definitely been this way _as far back as I can remember_ (at least the last two decades). There have always been popular tools. Most of them haven't stu

It has definitely been this way _as far back as I can remember_ (at least the last two decades). There have always been popular tools. Most of them haven't stuck around though. Emacs has. I wouldn't recommend using it right away though. Instead, I'd recommended accumulating some pain by using other popular editor-like,workflow-like,manipulation-like tools, because that might be the only way to appreciate what Emacs brings to the table. (though I have to acknowledge VSCode's achievement, gaining massive adoption in what has always been a fragmented space)