I think the big issue is that everyone like pydantic and are willing to put it in places it may not really see a big benefit, over say, DRF.
OTOH, if you're a big fan of NoSQL databases, then pydantic is a godsend.
OTOH, if you're a big fan of NoSQL databases, then pydantic is a godsend.
If you are actually doing simple CRUD, then DRF's ModelViewSets are great, and Pydantic would indeed be an overkill. However once the view diverges from your DB model, writing Pydantic models IMO is FAR superior than having to write custom DRF serializers.
If the DB is your schema, great, DRF is awesome. But if the DB is not your schema, no problem, DRF still can handle it.
And with DRF you get CRUD by default. And if you don't want CRUD, no problem, DRF has generic API views too.