I think OP may be judging the popularity of Zig by social media popularity, which is an interesting but not reliably proxy. Regarding the notable programs, you

I think OP may be judging the popularity of Zig by social media popularity, which is an interesting but not reliably proxy. Regarding the notable programs, you are of course right. But considering Zig hasn’t even had a stable release and is currently in 0.11, I think it’s impressive that there already is a very notable project being implemented in it. Judging by that decision, I would assume Zig has some very convincing features that make it worth taking the risk of being an early adopter.