Objective-C was the language of NeXTSTEP, which was one of the most productive programming environments of its era (early 1990's). In companies where custom, i

Objective-C was the language of NeXTSTEP, which was one of the most productive programming environments of its era (early 1990's). In companies where custom, in-house software development was required, NeXT, NeXTSTEP, and Objective-C did quite well. The whole macOS thing happened about 10 years after the first successes of Objective-C, when it was well on the path to obscurity due to the failure of NeXT's hardware, and then operating system businesses. But this also kinda proves your point ... it was NeXTSTEP that made Objective-C succeed (both the first time, and then again with macOS/iOS).