>It does show up on top 5 lists for Linux desktop distros quite a lot

1) Firstly, your source plase? My research according to Google Gemini 3.8 Pro shows top 5 DEs are as follows:

  +---+---------------+------------+-------------------------------------+
  | # | Environment   | Est. Share | Primary Ecosystem / Defaults        |
  +---+---------------+------------+-------------------------------------+
  | 1 | GNOME         | 45% - 50%  | Ubuntu, Fedora, Debian, RHEL        |
  | 2 | KDE Plasma    | 25% - 30%  | SteamOS, openSUSE, Kubuntu, Manjaro |
  | 3 | Cinnamon      |  8% - 12%  | Linux Mint flagship                 |
  | 4 | Xfce          |  6% - 9%   | MX Linux, Xubuntu, low-spec PCs     |
  | 5 | MATE          |  2% - 4%   | Ubuntu MATE, Mint MATE (GNOME 2)    |
  | - | Others / WMs  |  3% - 5%   | Hyprland, i3, Sway, LXQt, Budgie    |
  +---+---------------+------------+-------------------------------------+ 

So then COSMIC isn't even TOP 5, for this to be a major target by market share as originally claimed.

2) Secondly, keep in mind that distrowatch is not representative of linux userbase. MX-Linux kept showing up at the top spot for many years despite being niche.

3) And thirdly, TOP 5 DE isn't really an achievement when Linux DE market share is overwhelmingly dominated by KDE Plasma and Gnome as the majority shareholders, with XFCE and Cinnamon trailing. So Cosmic DE if it somehow made the no. 5 spot, would still be ignorable sub <1% market share, as I initially claimed, basically invisible to bad actors.