I used and still use macports, but there were valid reasons to switch to homebrew: macports did not have precompiled packages, did not use system libraries, and machines were not as powerful as they are now.

This meant if you wanted to install, say, ImageMagick, you would spend one day compiling stuff.

Also contributing a brew recipe was (and probably still is) easier than contributing to macports, and brew casks are pretty convenient.

I deeply dislike some of the choices of homebrew, but I can understand why it was popular, and it wasn't just because of the ruby hype.