Look at PHP. Every year people say PHP got much better then in the dark ages.

Yes it got rid of it's rough edges. People solely look positive at it because it has become more familiar with mainstream OOP languages. But it has no identity anymore. It is still simpler for the web then most competitors, but it doesn't matter because you install 30 packages for an hello world anyway. The community doesn't want simplicity, they want easy, with glorious looking code.

The irony is that PHP is perceived more attractive by coders, but it's so generic now, that a newbie is unlikely to choose it.