- Type inference becoming commonplace is an important factor. Previously it felt kind of silly in statically typed langs to supply some of the things compiler could figure out.

- Strict null checking becoming commonplace increased confidence. Previously, even if your code compiled, you would still get null pointer exceptions.

- Type checking became kind of opt-in with langs like TypeScript.

- Statically typed langs used to be associated with heavy IDE's previously. Now you can use most editors and get the benefit of compiler within the editor through language servers.