Python is easy to use and easy to start programming in. Much easier than the other alternatives you mention. This from a guy who uses python but does not particularly care for it. I love me some curly braces and hate significant whitespace but there is no getting around the ease of teaching in python and its beginner friendliness.

Why cant you use python at scale? Many ML/AI/Data tasks are exceedingly resource intensive but python still plays in thoses spaces as you elude to.

Are people writing realtime systems in python? Probably not but dont be quick to dismiss python before you know it is not performant enough for your use case.

I'm not saying python is the best choice, but it is often the easiest choice.