My own experience is that the vast majority of programmers have experience with one model and maybe some short usage of earlier models from a competing choice but want to be using the model with the highest popularity and reputation. I've worked with people who actually had to test multiple choices for their team who didn't understand why they were pressured to select Claude for programmer morale.

I went from cycling between models all the time in Cursor (some would randomly be better at certain tasks than others) to just going pure Opus 4.5 when that came out - it was so far ahead of anything else at the time.

Interestingly with Fable vs GPT-5.6 I think they've lost their lead a bit. I'm finding Fable can't do certain work that 5.6 Sol Ultra can - especially when it comes to webpage design.

Grok 4.5 was fast but made mistakes that GPT/Fable just don't.

I'm curious to try Kimi.

When iOS users are given an Android phone, they complain about how awful of an OS it is.

In reality, they just aren't used to it.