>But eclipse is gone (I think?) and emacs is still GOATed.

The 2024 stack overflow developer survey [0] puts Eclipse at over double Emac's market share. If Eclipse is gone, then Emacs is double gone. Emacs struggles to attract and retain new users. This advice is not calling existing Emacs users deprived. It's rooted from the bad defaults giving new users a bad impression of Emac's viability because the default is so bad. If emacs built out proper telemtry they could actually track how the defaults they provide affect the new user experience in order for them to optimize it and figure out what users are looking for.

[0] https://survey.stackoverflow.co/2024/technology