"Lost the battle?" Ruby is a far better ecosystem now than it was when it was getting popular. C is "dying" according to your definition. It's number 2 on the TIOBE index, while Ruby is in the top twenty. I'm using Common Lisp do build my product, and that one is long dead and buried according to popularity.

Maybe there are business reasons to avoid less popular programming languages, but there aren't any programming reasons to avoid them. Maybe we should stop treating tools as if they were candidates for homecoming king and queen.