Grandparent has a point, and it's not quite as outlandish as you make it out to be.

Consider that a lot of Python developers write most of their code in Python, then rewrite critical parts in C to speed it up. Python is not a speed demon, and that becomes particularly problematic with tight loops or heavy math—but writing entire applications in C is error-prone and tedious.

Rust won't outright replace both of those, but it does offer a nice middle ground: it's safe, it has some higher-level constructs, it does away with some boilerplate, it builds fairly easily, and it still compiles essentially to machine code. Writing quick shell-like scripts or entire applications in a systems language is now a viable option for lazy jerks like me, even if it's not always the best one.