That's probably a factor in its popularity, but it's in the category of "numerical contractions" like i18n [internationalization] or l10n [localization]. Numerical contractions were already very popular in the space of "making things work correctly for more people" [accessibility, localization, internationalization...].
Except that they don't really 'work correctly' in screen readers. They get read out rather awkwardly.
Sometimes, when I read these contractions too much, I’m starting to think I should short my first name as “T1m”.
No, it is just a numeronym[0], just like K8s for Kubernetes, g11n for globalisation, i18n for internationalisation, or L10n for localisation.