[nanofortnight]

Quite a large number of people use C++.

C++ is 3rd place on the latest (July 2017) TIOBE index, behind Java and C.

C++ sits in a niche wherein its competitors have mostly died out with the notable exception of D and few modern languages threaten to replace it other than Rust. It's a low-level language that provides expressitivity that's a step above C but fits in a similar role in environments that are unable to use garbage collection or as the base on which larger systems are built.

After all, you need your fancy virtual machines and modern runtimes to be written in something and there are few choices other than C/C++.