[deostroll]

The language died because of Microsoft tried to woo java developers into using the .net ecosystem. So whenever the CLR got more features, C# (rather than VB) started supporting them more readily. Experience wise, it looked more elegant in c# than in vb.

VB originally wasn't thought of as an OOP language. But through vb.net when that paradigm was "imported", the language lost its charm.

Further more, web development took flight. No one was interested to build desktop applications anymore.

Also I wouldn't say the influx of java developers into the .net ecosystem was that considerable. (Or for that matter other platform developers like python, delphi). It was definitely slow during the 2002s. Because the java ecosystem had achieved code-once-and-run-any-where paradigm. You could write desktop applications developed on windows, on, linux machines. From a business POV why would application developers "want" a different ecosystem to achieve this?

All this sort of eventually killed classic VB.

PS: you should also ask bing ai this question. :)