If one wants control over everything and manual memory management as safe as achievable (ie. systems programming), currently, this is the only (major) way. IMO

If one wants control over everything and manual memory management as safe as achievable (ie. systems programming), currently, this is the only (major) way. IMO the market share for this profile is indeed small. Languages that trade off a part of that security for simplicity may have considerably more market share in the future, although on the other hand, the public may instead prefer a "fast-enough and dead-simple" language.