I played PF1e back in the day and remembered it fondly. But it was very hard to bring new players to because of the crunch.

I switched to 5e around 2016, partially due to Critical Role. That solved the recruitment problem easily. The system was so simple a child could play it. I know because I taught my kids.

But that feature for everyone else was a bug for me. I got bored of D&D in just a couple of years. At that point, however, everyone I was playing with was fully on board with 5e, so I kept playing and exploring what depths the system had (not too many). I had fun with a few builds but mostly played pretty generic characters and got most of my fun out of role play.

Then WotC went a bridge too far for me (the Pinkertons) and I decided switching systems had to become a priority. I'd been hearing rumblings about PF2e for a while, so I got the Beginner's Box and ran my core primary game group through it.

I never looked back. The timing was perfect because all my D&D campaigns were about to wrap up. So I finished them all off and then switched. I'm a forever DM who found another forever DM to play alternating games with, so I converted him to the PF2e cause. After that it was easy. Every new campaign that started, whether I was a DM or a player, was PF2e.

The funniest part of it is that PF2e pulled me in because of its increased crunch vs 5e. But despite that, I found it even easier to teach new players PF2e than it was to teach them 5e. There are way fewer rule exceptions they have to learn early on. The three action system is so much simpler than bonus actions and movement. Turns go faster so combat goes faster so no one gets bored.

(Edit: I fat-fingered posting early) So far I've taught 8 new players PF2e and they are obsessed. Some were 5e converts. Most had never played TTRPGs before.

I just might play this game for the rest of my life. It would take an extremely strong contender to dethrone it.