As always, it depends what you're using it for and what your UI expectations are. But for me in particular, some people I've worked with, and presumably others, it can definitely "compete". It does everything I need it to, and my workflow is faster. And I can throw a copy onto any old machine without having to jump through licensing hoops or download a "download manager" or whatever bolt-on shit PS needs these days.

Early on, for me, the killer feature was that it started up about 10x as quickly as PS, so I could start it, work, close it, get on with other work, whereas PS was so drearily slow that I'd leave it running all day rather than wait for it to launch, which meant that I had about half my RAM available for other things. It's better now, and a lot of that has been obsoleted by faster CPUs and more resources in everyone's computer, but I still remember how much of a chore it was to use PS.