I've read this exact article at least a dozen times over the last 25 years (replace Python with some other language). More interesting than the actual content

I've read this exact article at least a dozen times over the last 25 years (replace Python with some other language). More interesting than the actual content is the question why this topic is of such perennial interest, is it a feeling of inferiority of programmers working in higher-level but slower languages? Or frustration with coworkers wasting time on premature optimization? Probably a mixture of both.