You also have to take into account the cost difference. Other DCCs cost orders of magnitude more than Photoshop does. The value of a free program really inspires more faith.

Also blender was regularly used to make content with input from the community. Multiple shorts that dog fooded it and provided improvements through the process, while inspiring many to see what’s possible.

GIMP doesn’t have any of that. Photoshop can be had now for $10/mo or something cheap like that. It’s not thousands of dollars a year like for DCCs. It doesn’t have productions driving features in it , or creating content regularly to inspire people.

Krita does better here because they do small but more engaged community outreach to create content with Krita and have it feed back into the app

> Also blender was regularly used to make content with input from the community. Multiple shorts that dog fooded it and provided improvements through the process, while inspiring many to see what’s possible.

The Blender Foundation and community made that happen! No glib “if you don’t like it, fix it!” type comments. I’m not suggesting that you personally have said that, but look at the context and process of Blender’s development and success. The people at the Foundation, along with a buoyant community have worked hard and listened to the criticisms and transparently worked on them. It’s been a long slog.

Yep that’s exactly what I mean by dog fooding it.

They’re not only developing it, they’re trying it in actual productions and using that to improve it

Nothing would make me happier than a serious, open source alternative to Photoshop, but GIMP is not currently on a Blender-like trajectory to be that.

And it will never be. Its developers don't intend that (sadly, uno).