A question I ask myself often is what niche does a language fill, and it seems a little like the traditional niche of PHP has been eroded away in the last decad

A question I ask myself often is what niche does a language fill, and it seems a little like the traditional niche of PHP has been eroded away in the last decade. Many of the things that gave PHP an edge (ease of deployment, templating within your HTML files, direct SQL queries) are no longer considered the correct approach. At the same time PHP is trying to reinvent itself by adopting a strong type system and experimenting with async and long running processes. But these are niches that are already filled better by other languages (Java/C#, Node, Go), so it feels like they are fighting an uphill battle. But maybe it is that tenacity of the language to stay relevant that makes it attractive to a younger generation of developers and decision makers.