Wasn't Perl 6 itself a reaction to the fact that a lot of developers already leaving for PHP in the web space and Python in the "I need something like a shell script, but need/want a real programming language".
As Jon Orwant (supposedly) said in 2000 (quoting from the article you linked):
> we are fucked unless we can come up with something that will excite the community, because everyone's getting bored and going off and doing other things
Re:The Future of Perl
by thatwasunusual on Wednesday March 24, 2021 @08:45AM
(#26566435)
I honestly don't remember. Nor do I care anymore. :)
I have the same feeling. I've been programming Perl since mid 90s, and I was - as many others - hyped when Perl 6 was announced early 2000s. 20 years later, it's just different programming language in my eyes; I won't spend any time on it, because if I need Perl, Perl 5.x will do just fine.
Unfortunately, because of Perl 6/Parrot/Raku, or what the current name is, I think it made many developers get off the Perl train. There are lots of good frameworks for Perl that makes it super-easy to get something up and running really quickly;
The list goes on, but this is the "out of the box"-stuff for me to get up and running with something, if not just a prototype of something.