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"50 million cigarette smokers can't be wrong!"

An appeal to popularity is not really a logical fallacy if someone is arguing that something is (effectively) unpopular.

Depends if you define popular by most used or most liked.

Most used: everyone pays taxes. Paying taxes is popular!

A more practical example is javascript. I write some javascript, not because I like it (I hate it), but because that's the only way to make things happen in a browser. Javascript is popular. Does it mean it is liked / a good language?

If the statement is "there are no cigarette smokers", then "there are 50 million" is a reasonable counterpoint.

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