It seems word of mouth has been increasing (I've been using Linux since 2014 and only heard about it in late 2020). Maybe - it has to do with DLTs like Cardano

It seems word of mouth has been increasing (I've been using Linux since 2014 and only heard about it in late 2020). Maybe - it has to do with DLTs like Cardano adopting Nix. - influencers like youtubers and podcasters have began talking about it - migration from IRC to Matrix, so people can discover it more easily - people who are into functional programming cycles often talk about it, e.g. haskell, lisp, emacs... - with the raise of Flatpaks and Snaps, people have been talking more often about Nix as an alternative. The same can be said about Docker/containers and is often suggested as alternative - mainstream Linux distros taking inspiration from NixOS to make their own immutable and atomic OSs: Fedora Silverblue, openSUSE MicroOS, Clear Linux, ... - since mid 2010s there was some push towards making documentation better for beginners. The official website also got a modern look to be more attractive. So also taking into account nixpkgs is probably good enough for the average user and has a good enough ecosystem around it as well, this all means NixOS has become mature enough for willing/passionate adopters (e.g. Arch users who want the next shiny tech), and who will talk about it in every given opportunity.