[pron]

> It's not that it's a novel or strange theory, it's just wrong.

Okay. Can you provide an example of a language that steadily and gradually grew in popularity over a long time (well over a decade) and that this slow growth was the lion share of its market size growth? You say "it's just wrong" but I think it applies to 100% of cases, and if you want to be specific when it comes to numbers, then even languages whose market share has grown by a factor of 5 after age 10 is a small minority, and even a factor of 2 is a minority.

> Yeah, no. See, humans have a strong preference for the status quo so it isn't enough that some technology "offers a big competitive advantage", they'd usually just rather not actually.

Except, again, all languages, successful and unsuccessful alike, have approached their peak market share in their first decade or so. You can quibble over what I mean by "approach" but remember that Rust, at age 10+, needs to grow its market share by a factor of 10 to even match C++'s already-diminished market share today.