I see that as literally the main point that the author sets out to argue: popularity does not equal quality. I don't think it's a very controversial idea that

I see that as literally the main point that the author sets out to argue: popularity does not equal quality. I don't think it's a very controversial idea that JS is popular due to its monopoly status rather than its qualities (whatever we argue them to be). I find it hard to imagine that JS would have ever been very popular on the backend or on smartphones if it wasn't for the monopoly of the frontend. The fact is, today you can cover many bases with this one language. This is great for businesses where the primary concern is how quickly you can get a new person to sit in someone's seat, so this opens up a lot of jobs. A lot of jobs means a lot of incentive to learn the language, closing the loop. In short, for many actors on the market, there are many reasons to use JS without having to like JS, or even care about its qualities as a language. I'm not sure why it's hard to swallow that JS (the cultural phenomenon) has qualities that aren't inherited from JS (the artifact).