[paulriddle]

The biggest problem with PHP is that a lot of smart people don't want to work with it for whatever reason, and you really want these smart people. To succeed you have to have a good team. Difficult to assemble one with PHP as your language.

If you use PHP you are going to lose. The world has moved on. Remember that you are not the only game in town. Good engineers have opportunities in Python, Javascript, Ruby, Rust, Golang, whatever. These languages have better reputation, better communities, they are more exciting. PHP might have become better but it's too late. It wasn't late for Javascript, but it is late for PHP.