id suspect VIM would have a very hard time if it was coming out now and nobody knew about it, even for free. That doesnt mean its not awesome, but VIM is all about its legacy, huge ecosystem and hype.
I've heard the "hype" about vim for years, sometimes from people who clearly (in retrospect) didn't understand what made vim so good. It was not a selling point for me!
I switched to vim about a month ago and am more productive now than I ever was before. I'd fight to keep vim in my toolkit. Modal editing, jump commands, chained actions, macros, tiling, windowing and configurability are just a few of the features I would miss if I had to switch back.
Non-vimmers: Don't get blinded by the hype, vim rocks for practical reasons.
VIM clearly is the most hyped editor nowadays by the hardcore tech circle and imo that plays a big role in its popularity. It has a few runner ups like emacs and Sublime etc, and before it textmate was the tool to use. Of course VIM has been popular for a long time, but only in recent years i see all these high quality resources to learning VIM cropping up and its alot more visible than it was a few years ago.
And because it's available everywhere I guess. Without such wide availability (that's what "hype" probably refers to), I don't think it would have been so popular.
I also use vim because it gets the job done, but I completely agree with parent: Vims present day success is due in part to it having a massive culture of advocacy. It's hard to attract new users without hype.
I don't agree with the "hype" part. Where's the hype? I use vim because it gets the job done.