You're not the only one who's surprised. If I'm correct, Surly helped with the development of fat bikes since they're part of a huge distributor (QBP). So, since there is the Surly Bridge Club, I guess that may help out a bit over time. It looks to me like sometimes it's some niche players in the bike industry that end up having an impact.

On a side note, I know I was one of the people coming out with comments that road bikes had skinny tires. Then Trek and Specialized started coming out with various bikes to perhaps fill that gap in the market. Then it looks like a whole group of people started working with Shimano to start the whole gravel bike biz. Now, these kinds of bikes may be helped out by the new bike packing trend.

I think these markets were needed but for whatever reason, I guess it takes a specific ideas like "gravel" or "bike packing" to get people into it.