[simonster]

If journals ever demand code that reviewers can read (as they should IMO; who knows whether hard to read garbage is actually doing what they claim it is in the methods section, and the call for reproducibility in science is getting stronger), then academics might be forced to learn to code. And then they might want to use a programming language that's more conducive to readable code.

I don't think MATLAB toolboxes are a huge obstacle. Maybe something like the Aerospace Toolbox is useful for people in aerospace. But for people in my field (neuroscience), people end up writing their own code for their various applications anyway, because the MATLAB toolboxes are too slow or too inflexible for their use cases. The source of inertia is that everyone uses MATLAB, so they end up writing the code in MATLAB. While it takes time to overcome an established userbase, I think it will happen eventually if the alternatives have substantial technical advantages, as I believe Julia does. It only takes a handful of technically skilled people to reproduce the majority of the code in common use, and if there are good reasons for those people to write that code in Julia and for others to use that Julia code, then Julia will eventually take over.