[mamami]

It was never close. Its synthax is unintuitive and painful to learn as a science undergrad. If it hadn't been python it would have been another language.

[physicsguy]

Python's rapid adoption really came out of NumPy, SciPy, Matplotlib copying the interfaces from MATLAB, which was very widely used before but obviously had a cost associated.

[UpsideDownRide]

This is obviously a personal thing but tidyverse syntax is great and lends itself very well to clear and concise data operations.

[kjkjadksj]

I found base R even easier than tidyverse. Geom?? Puke. Just call the plot function you want from the standard library. Everything is just function(arg1=x, arg2=y). Easy.