(well I don’t really use linux, outside of maybe once a year out of bordom): Because it was the first time I ever came across a distro that had a ‘bare minimum fresh’ network install CD as one of the download options waaay back when I first found it. I liked the idea of having clean everything because back then, every single distro would have like 20 different office suites, 20 different browsers, 20 different text editors, etc etc absolutely filling up every little start menu item.
I stuck with debian ever since as a favorite and still net-install every time I try it out. — I do have a raspberry pi though with xfce on it. It’s very debianlike to me