Cobol powers the world's money and international travel. Not sure how that matters.

> Think about what Rust software people actually use

More and more Chrome, Google, Android, Cloudflare, Prime Video, and phone basebands, parts of Linux kernel, and many other things.

Normal users literally use those all day every day.

Are they 100% Rust? Of course not (well, I don't actually know if some phone basebands are, by now. Naturally very closed source). But they're not 100% another-language either.

If C disappeared from the world, the world would stop, yes. Same with Cobol. Same with Java. Same with C++. Same with assembly.

If I were to guess (completely without basis for my guess) about the number of lines of code that normal users exercise in a normal day (counting each line just once), my bet would be on Java or JS.

Would the Java be able to run without the C code? No. But normal users would not be able to do anything if only C was left. And all banks would be gone.

And in any case C would not be able to do anything without transistors.