It's just a colossal misread of the demographics. The community was always a mix of people who wanted to build a printer, and people who wanted a printed thing. The community has massively exploded since the early years, and it's almost entirely made of people in the latter camp who, critically, no longer have to go through the former campsite to get there. It doesn't mean there aren't people in the first camp, or even that there are fewer of them. They're just a rounding error now.
You can tell when it happened, because the E3D v6 nozzle pattern went from being a de facto standard across everything to something you need to buy an adapter for, and nobody really seemed to blink.
The Groovemount was the "standard" for a while there (Makergear, Jhead, etc) then when E3D came in they used the same idea but changed the measurements.
It was pointed out to the devs...they left it the way they modified it.
So E3D was incompatible with the mounts that were the "standard"...others later followed and also made their own mounts.
The E3D clones advertised themselves as "jheads" and "E3D" when they were neither...rode on the popularity of other hotends via false advertising. It also happened with the electronics that were popular at the time leading to a lot of issues when people were confused about what firmware would run on the boards they purchased.
You can tell when it happened, because the E3D v6 nozzle pattern went from being a de facto standard across everything to something you need to buy an adapter for, and nobody really seemed to blink.