I don't see why it wouldn't become as popular as Go, which is still a pretty niche language despite the Silicon Valley and HN hype. C++ is an entire other beas

I don't see why it wouldn't become as popular as Go, which is still a pretty niche language despite the Silicon Valley and HN hype. C++ is an entire other beast. Asking whether a language will be as popular as "Go or C++" is like asking whether it'll be as popular as "Julia or Java". C++ is one of the top 5, maybe one of the top 2 languages that existing software is built in. For about 15 (maybe even 20) years before Java matured, and then another 5-10 before C# became the default for new Windows projects, it was by leaps and bounds the most common language for building desktop and enterprise software. There are still billions of lines of C++ code in production and being maintained, possibly trillions. Not to mention new projects still being begun using it. FWIW, I personally think Rust has a better chance of becoming the next C++ than Go does, but who can really predict the future anyway?