Personally, I ended up in this niche world because of discomforts, RSI and other similar motor issues.
Mechanical keyboards are also programmable, so I can move around keys to avoid painful or unhealthy movements and combinations. With harder switches I can also feel my finger and hands getting tired faster than with smoother switches.
Oh yeah, and the arrow keys are usually super inconvenient to use if you touch-type all day. Having a special modifier to use vim motion keys everywhere is really handy.
I don't speak for all aficionados of course. Plenty of people do it for fun or merely to research new way to build keyboards.
Mechanical keyboards are also programmable, so I can move around keys to avoid painful or unhealthy movements and combinations. With harder switches I can also feel my finger and hands getting tired faster than with smoother switches.
Oh yeah, and the arrow keys are usually super inconvenient to use if you touch-type all day. Having a special modifier to use vim motion keys everywhere is really handy.
I don't speak for all aficionados of course. Plenty of people do it for fun or merely to research new way to build keyboards.