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Just an example: Why wasn't it a priority to make scala run well on dalvik? The place is taken by kotlin and is one of its strongest selling points.

Core team didn't care about Android. Simple as that. :-)

That was pretty much my point.

Because there never was a real demand for it? What does that have to do with Scala's academic roots?

And what makes you think Scala needs Android to be successful? Android is completely irrelevant to most Java developers.