I remember back when carbon first appeared, I immediately thought it's not gonna get popular simply because it has "fn" and "var"

superficial details matter - people that stayed on C++ instead of transitioning to flashy new ones have type-before-name as part of programming identity

you can have all the features in the world (and be recognized by it), but if the code doesn't _look_ like C++, then it's of no interest

Well, the Carbon team primarily focusses on one customer: Google. If management decides "it's carbon now" then a few thousand developers will write carbon or change jobs. If they are then somewhat successful inside Google, people leaving will spread it.

I don't think it will reach the same distribution as other languages, as the niche is "large C++ projects, which want to transition to something else without rewrite" for anybody else there are a huge number of alternatives.

Stockholm syndrome, after learning C++ syntax, surely it wasn't all for nothing, I can't accept that.