[RobertKerans]

It's very easy to build small things with (small API servers, proxies, tools for example), development of those things is quick, the development feedback cycle is extremely rapid, JS is a bit of a lingua franca (for better or for worse), it is extremely easy to get set up (again, for simple things). In turn this created a huge community, which in turn triggered a virtuous (?) circle, and gave easily-installable libraries for almost anything you can think of. It also should be said that it is good at what it does. The reactor pattern works well in specific use cases and is easy to understand -- which I guess is the main cause of it being used as a general purpose hammer. Yes, it has glaring issues, but the "silly JS programmers with their toy language wanted to write backend servers" meme is a bit annoying.