To be clear, that developer survey asked:

    > Which programming, scripting, and markup languages have you done extensive development work in over the past year, and which do you want to work in over the next year?

It does not ask if you are gainfully employed and using this language for your job.

Also, in the same results, just above Rust, I see:

    > PowerShell 13.8%

<sarcasm> So, I guess that we can safely say that Microsoft PowerShell is still more popular than Rust. </sarcasm>

In my mind not niche means having jobs, and Rust has no jobs, not in any meaningful amount at least, and none at all in most countries. That puts it deep in the niche category for me.

> According to Stack Overflow developer survey [0] Rust is at 12.5%, ... So definitely not niche.

The annual survey is very popular in the Rust community. Its results are often used for advocacy. Participation by Rust developers is very high. So what you have is a classic case of a selection bias.

I will take C, C++ or Zig over Rust any day. For some people, like me, the Rust way of doing things isn't a good fit. It's not a model I enjoy working with.

I like F#, Haskell, Elixir but not Rust.

Personally I will always prefer C's simplicity to Rust's complexity. Could be just me.