Rust didn't have nearly the industry adoption it does now back in 2020, but it was gaining traction in various parts of the community. If you learned it back then it was either because you love it, or you thought it had staying power.

I think Zig does, specifically because of its build system and it's C interopt story. Plus Zig has the added advantage that learning it teaches you about how the computer works, how memory gets laid out, etc. So even if it never gets wide adoption the skills are highly transferable.