Nix's ecosystem really has exploded over the last couple of years. Even very obscure packages can be found, that are definitely AUR/PPA-territory in other distros.

At least, that's my personal experience.

While I agree that it’s somewhat difficult to compare. Especially as node and python packages are separately packaged in Nix.

However it is clear that the Nix folks are quite productive with maintaining packages. So that statement is judgemental, as it implies that all those packages are not ‘the right things to get done’.

No it’s very much meaningful. for every new ecosystem it’s immediately graded based on whether it has the critical mass of adoption. The build and release system is great, what I actually wish for is nixpkgs to offer debs and rpms to ensure that maintainers flock here