It is. If your media diet consists of HN and reddit you'd think people actually use Rust, but judging by who's hiring for what according to Indeed, Java is 3rd after Python and JavaScript, and Rust doesn't even rank.

Yes, it's extremely popular. No matter how you count it's at least in the top 10 programming languages for new code being written. And there are several other niche languages that also target the JVM.

It was never unpopular.

You had some tryhards pulling some insane class name from the bowels of a library [1] and using that as an example that Java will always have a problem with naming and is therefore doomed. Or an alternative language claiming that they will eat Javas lunch, forgetting that it is used in a lot of Enterprise and its going nowhere [2].

I have had a few gig that have needed me to work in Python, JavaScript or Typescript, but there was always a pairing with Java.

[1] See Aspectj - HasThisTypePatternTriedToSneakInSomeGenericOrParameterizedTypePatternMatchingStuffAnywhereVisitor.java

[2] https://blog.jetbrains.com/idea/2024/07/is-java-still-releva...

I mean it is not like oracle sit there and other companies do all the work. They do employ a lot of people contributing to the JVM ecosystem whether you hate them or not. So credit where credits due.