[jayd16]

The specifics of C# are fairly irrelevant. Point is that even if swift is forced, middleware can and will just plaster over that. Even if Metal is forced, tools can plaster over that.

Apple forcing an API is not enough to sustain a language's popularity.

[pjmlp]

When the language is required for one of two mobile ecosystems, and second major desktop ecosystem, popularity is relative.

For decades C# was only relevant on Windows, outside Unity never got wide adoption among AAA studios after Unreal became free, and after their license debacle less so, Godot favors C++ and GDScript even with C# support it isn't what most folks reach for, and Microsoft keeps having an adoption (popularity) problem on UNIX culture oriented startups.

While just like Swift on Apple's ecosystem, C# is doing just fine on Microsoft culture environments.

Popularity is relative.