It is a lot easier, but I've been working on this language project for almost 8 months now. I've spent a lot of time in research papers and thinking about both dev UX and how it works with LLMs. Knocking together a working compiler on LLVM is WAY easier now, but making something nice is still hard. A language is so much more than a compiler and syntax. So to your point, standing out is incredibly hard.

I'm doing this because it interests me and I'm learning, but it does feel quixotic at times.