I think that's part of the problem. It seems like the only way to have a good nix experience is to go all in with NixOS. The problem is that is a huge sell for

I think that's part of the problem. It seems like the only way to have a good nix experience is to go all in with NixOS. The problem is that is a huge sell for someone who already has an OS they like and the fact that testing out nix standalone is such a pain means you end up with very little confidence in the prospect of migrating everything over. Plus, at least when I considered NixOS a few years ago, the setup instructions seemed not well ironed out and made me really hesitant that it wouldn't brick my system. All in all I think nix falls into the category of great idea in theory, but the implementation is so lacking in ergonomics and ease of use that I don't see how it could be anything other than a niche build system without major UX updates.