I dunno man. Why was Tangled able to ship on top of ATProto even prior to getting funded, and ForgeFed has been hanging out for years?
AP isn't completely stagnant but there's a reason AT is still holding on to and accelerating that early developer excitement AP had. Maybe it's marketing, maybe it's money, maybe it's some technical thing. Maybe it's the community. Whatever it is, people seem to enjoy developing in the Atmosphere in a way I never saw on AP.
Of course VC funding and startup mindsets prefer a protocol that is easier to rugpull.