Gimp was never in such a situation.
Culture is important.
Which brings us back to why so many people dislike Gimp, and/or see it as a posterchild example of bad FOSS alternatives.
I agree, and Culture IS important. And I think the culture around many Open Source "Alternatives" is harming themselves and the overall FOSS community. From Mastodon via Gimp to Nextcloud.
Not to mention the fact that if you ever mention in any way that GIMP's UX/UI could be better to anyone of its veteran devs they would turn weirdly ultra defensive and take everything personal.
Blender is a very popular, maybe the most popular, for the tasks its used for. Gimp is not.