> The global financial system moves so much money around that comparisons to GDP are a bit silly.

Agreed. I guess its comparing production capacity to distribution capacity. Distribution capacity will equal n_tx * tx_amt. Having said that, another metric to look at is how much of software infrastructure is built on Java. Simply adding AWS to this equation proves the value added by Java backed systems. Hard to say that about any other langauge. Also we can look at versatility, Java is used to write very large data processing systems, CDN networks, API servers and even widely used consumer apps (IntelliJ products). Its very hard to find any other language that has had an outsized impact across domains. Of course the counter being Linux written on C powers all of the internet. True but C doesnt have the cross domain impact that Java has had.

So I disagree with the assessment that Java is a terrible langauge performance or productivity wise or it wouldnt have had this impact.

You could easily say the same about C/C++, as the operating systems and most databases are written in the language(s).