Yes, it's more than just about the language itself, as I describe here: https://www.fosskers.ca/en/blog/software-dev-langs
For some people, community signals are very important. Massive conferences or raw number of libraries, etc., indicate some inner quality of that language's ecosystem that they value.
Re:A Tour of Lisps
by galaxyLogic on Tuesday January 30, 2024 @12:39PM
(#39193087)
Nice link, holistic viewpoint!
Programmers who program in some language for a few years realize they are still learning more about it, all the time. Therefore they know if they switched to another language it would also take them a few years to attain the same level of mastery.
And then there is similar inertia with an organization that has lots of code in some specific language already.