[antonvs]

The model made more sense before containers existed. Basically, Java tried to become a complete platform for application deployment, at a time when there weren’t many other good solutions to that.

However, the problem with that is that it requires writing everything in Java - heterogeneity breaks the model. A language-agnostic solution like containers was bound to win out, it’s just that nothing remotely close existed at the time.

Keep in mind a lot of this was developed even before VMs were commonplace. The first true, usable VMs for x86 were released in 1999, four years after Java’s debut.