The software for machine learning have become both significantly more powerful and significantly more user-friendly, and pre-trained image and text models have become extremely powerful to the point where a hobbyist can get satisfying results without being an expert. This has made it easier than ever to learn machine learning, and it's made it easier to develop resources for learning machine learning.

Definitely seeing a pattern of interest here, or is it just what I'm seeking out now, so I'm aware of it when I see it?

The pattern has been there for years, but interest has been consistently growing, as has the variety and quality of learning resources.

Which resource do you think is the best for beginners into ML?

I used fastai book: https://github.com/fastai/fastbook

It also exists as hardcover

The technology is being commoditized. That brings good and bad things with it.