Why is D unpopular?

[Guillaume Piolat]

On Tuesday, 2 November 2021 at 18:57:32 UTC, Paulo Pinto wrote:
> Meanwhile Swift, Go and Rust, managed to gather steam either by 
> having a benolovent corporate sponsor or by having a proper 
> goal of what they want to achieve.

On day one of their "introduction" (these languages were started 
way before their public release) Rust, Go and Swift had a 
marketing narrative that was both simple and then advertised to 
the public, with money.

These narrative play on people aspirations, by telling what they 
want to hear _about themselves_.

Go: "You're going to Google scale."

Rust: "We nailed security. You care about security, right? Also 
you're going to be one of those badass system programmers where 
things go fast."

Swift: "Well you have no choice. This is the future (if you want 
to sell something to Apple users)."

I think they not quite subtly played on FOMO.
I think D also has a narrative actually:

D: "You too can be financially independent by crushing the 
competition with D and hard work. More power than C++."

hence "Do It In D".

The problem is that the (Go/Rust/Swift) stories speaks to more 
people, like people in managerial positions. D's underhanded 
motto - and that's just an opinion - is fundamentally an appeal 
for way fewer people; I'd like to elaborate more but probably I'm 
just speculating without substance.

I don't think features or bugs ever entered the picture! Or only 
to support or contradict the main narrative.