I would agree if I didn't associate nvidia with incomprehensibly bad support for drivers. Idk, maybe this is a linux-only thing, but it's hard to imagine a vendor with a worse reputation for delivering functional software. Only perhaps microsoft itself has tried to be even more anti-consumer in their approach to support.

Cuda is ok, but it's the sheer mass of people targeting the platform that makes it more interesting than eg opencl. It hasn't don't anything clearly better aside from aggressively trying to court developer interest. It will pass and we will have stronger runtimes for it.

What really sets nvidia apart is its ability to market to people. Truly phenomenal performance.