[lloeki]

I do have that use case as well. Taking a parallel from git, it's kind of a working/staging area/stash. There's a feeling of zero commitment. It could be I try out some unknown package, or that I have a temporary one-shot need that still lasts longer than a nix-shell -p.

But mostly I use it as a beachhead for people to eventually jump ship, helping them climb the first step of the ladder:

"see? It's easy to install and use, you'll be quite autonomous. And if you feel it's not your thing just ignore it or rm -rf /nix"

Then I bait them with e.g shell.nix just enough to tease their curiosity.

So instead of feeling overwhelmed by a whole new arch and contractually tied by configs they feel free, empowered, and curious.