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This shows only a surface level understanding of what nix provides here.

One of the biggest benefits is the binary cache mechanism, which allows you to skip building something but have the effective result of the build pulled from the cache. It's classical distributions that make building from source only possible for those who can afford the infrastructure, nix is what enables the rest of us to do so.

The nix cache exists for a reason.

Glossing over some details, the build artifact and build definition are equivalent in Nix. If you know the build definition, you can pull the artifact from the cache and be assured that you have the same result.