I'd argue they're popular because no better alternative has been created (yet).

My point with the software is that most software people use to create software/apps is increasingly created with web technologies / electron apps, so the native app ecosystem on a desktop machine is increasingly weakening as a moat.

I'd say the #1 reason is that most developers (myself included) want the intersection of:

- Unix-like, developing on Windows is pure torture

- Don't waste my time with configurations, drivers and other crap, I want a machine that I can be productive with out of the box. Take my money if you have to, but I don't want to edit Xorg.conf ever again.

You can talk about polish all day, but no machine that doesn't satisfy both is even close to appealing for a majority of developers in my experience.

You are right about the native app ecosystem being less of a blocker, but that's in line with my point.