Yep, there were quite a few of the Youtubers who caught onto old shapers roughly the same time (Abom79, Stephen ?Gotswinger?, ThisOldTony, and a few others) that I think inspired a bunch of hobby machinists. As one such victim, I'll tell it from my perspective:
Owning a shaper is a tempting proposition after watching all of those youtubers. They are incredibly versatile, use cheap cutting tools, don't make a big mess, and are incredibly fun/mesmerizing to watch work. For those of us who make chips JUST for fun, the "you can make anything but a profit" is REALLY tempting: NONE of my machines make a profit, but the ability to make anything with them is tempting!
Additionally, these shapers are available in a bench-top size (7") and are quite capable. They don't require much space at all, are pretty quiet, and again, a lot of fun! So anyone with a really small shop can probably fit one and increase the capability of their shop a whole bunch.
From my perspective: I needed a little bit of an oddball keyway in a gear for a project (some antique european pasta maker for a friend). The chinesium broaches weren't available in the size, plus I didn't have an arbor press. The only broach I could find of the size was nearly $1000, let alone needing to make the bushing AND buy an arbor press big enough.
A 7" Atlas shaper showed up on craigslist for ~$1000, so I bought that instead. Instead of blowing $1000 on a broach that would get used 1x, I improved the capability of my shop! The shaper was a champ for the project, and got it done in an hour. I was over the moon!
After that, I kept finding great projects for the shaper, it was really useful! Everything from facing stock while I did something else, to cutting odd angles, to getting through casting shmoo, that little 7" shaper did a ton of work for my shop.
In the end, I just kept running into projects that it COULDN'T do, not because it was a shaper, but because it was a small shaper. The 'height' above the table it could cut wasn't big enough for a project, and it wasn't wide enough/etc. SO I found a 28" shaper on offerup, and brought that home as well! I ended up trading the Atlas shaper to someone who got $2500 for it afterwards.
I STILL love my 28" shaper, but the little 7" Atlas was way more capable than something its size should be. I've used a small benchtop mill of roughly the size, and a 7" lathe about that size: Neither was as good at its job as the little 7" shaper was.
So in the end: Everything that made a shaper an indispensable part of early 1900s machine shops, still applies to a home shop. Everything that made a shaper a waste of space in the 1960s doesn't matter to me/doesn't apply in a home shop. And I think that is math that is common to many who own one.