Mechanical keyboards were supposed to be a phase. Instead they became a hobby, then an industry, and now — having gone thoroughly mainstream — the people who started it are wandering off somewhere weirder.
Past the mainstream
Once every big brand sells a clacky board with per-key lighting, the enthusiasts stop caring about clacky and lighting. The frontier moved to feel: the exact dampening of a keypress, the acoustic signature of a case, switches tuned like instruments rather than components.
It sounds absurd until you use one. The difference between a good keyboard and a great one is small and completely real, and once you notice it you cannot unnotice it. That is the whole engine of the hobby.
We spend hours a day touching this thing. Caring how it feels is the sane response.
The physical keyboard never actually left. It just got quietly, obsessively good while everyone was looking at screens.