The interest isn't artificial; A lot of people (especially me) are just highly interested in this tech. I myself am working on a 2D variant meant for low-bandwidth environments to replace low-res pixel grid images.
You personally may not feel it, but there is a real, genuine interest, especially given how good it is at replicating photorealistic environments in realtime, relatively cheap (in comparison to NeRF). It's awesome.
Also, what would the ulterior motive be for someone to 'pump' this? There isn't a financial or clout-based motivation to do so. It's just interesting tech, which I believe we are all at least partly here for.
Not sure how good of an idea a Steam Deck would be for this. If you can't access Wikipedia, I imagine a replacement for its unprotected glass screen would be harder to come by if you drop it.
A few days ago I cracked the edge of my smartphone's screen at just the right spot to shut its display off entirely, though it still works. Using the USB-C dongle meant for my laptop, the phone pops into a desktop view which basically is the same experience as a Chromebook (for better or worse).
In the meantime before its repair, I shoved my SIM card into an old flipphone I had in the tech graveyard drawer. I've actually really liked the limited flipphone experience. It's a mental breath of fresh air to not have a time/focus black hole in my pocket at all times. It made me realize that I've had a pretty bad relationship with my smartphone in terms of how much time I wasted on it. I'm considering keeping the flipphone as my primary phone. Maybe smartphones do too much.
Five years ago, I paid a flat $45 fee for Cold Turkey, software which does the same thing on Windows and Mac which doesn't require I chip in for no additional work on the developer's part; It is completed software that runs on my own machine, just like Kiki.
Sure, diming $30/year is a 'better deal' than nickeling $5/month, but this is not the sort of 'deal' which this software warrants. This is not a service product, and pricing it like one is silly.
People are being murdered thousands of years later because of the ancient Judea equivalent of 'Harry Potter', and the batshit insane people who still believe it in earnest.