> memory of using Java desktop apps in ~2001 where they ate a ton of ram, seemed horrendously slow, Note that the horrible end user experience of running java

> memory of using Java desktop apps in ~2001 where they ate a ton of ram, seemed horrendously slow, Note that the horrible end user experience of running java programs (or java plug-ins in the browser) back in the day, never was indicative at all of how it's for running on servers and those kind of workloads. The stuff I've written in java for backends have been blazingly fast (compared to python for instance) and with much better tooling. So devs choose java/jvm because it works well, despite some shortcomings in some areas. Btw, I think you'd find today's java desktop apps to be snappier than you'd think (especially compared to electron for instance). Bundling the jvm removes the hassle of having to install something separate and version issues. And AOT compilation and the new modularity of the stdlib makes the files smaller and quicker to load.