I'm not sure such Emacs "distributions" really convince people that don't like it on a fundamental level. I've tried it a few times, but it always feels like it gets in my way because a large part of its assumptions and settings go against my expectations. And changing that seems like a multi-year project because the whole program is just so huge and complex and still growing.

If Emacs was faster and much smaller I'd probably love it. But in its current state all I can do is slap more plugins and modes on it until it almost grinds to a halt.

The native compilation feature that is now in the development branch makes this experience much better.

That is a good point, it's still Emacs after all.

These distributions do provide the ability to add the features you might need (Org-Mode, python or ruby support, etc.) without having to download a bunch of files of Elisp and code up a configuration file from scratch. Many require some binaries to be installed (like ruby or python) but a lot of people will have them installed already.

At a fundamental level, emacs is difficult because the crowd says it is difficult.

Oddly, I am not even claiming it isn't true. But it is the same fear that folks have in avoiding computers entirely. Not wrong, but fairly easy to overcome.

I don't feel like it was hard to pick up* so much as it was just not the right tool for me.

*Relative to my expectations when trying a new editor for a short period