I also consider myself the former. I often use C not so much to stay close to the hardware, but to be closer to the operating system APIs. Of course, there are

I also consider myself the former. I often use C not so much to stay close to the hardware, but to be closer to the operating system APIs. Of course, there are often API bindings for other languages, but they're often very incomplete, buggy, non-idiomatic, non-ergonomic, or lacking performance. And IME you only find this out after a few months. But from the get-go they're always worse documented and less flexible. I tend to mix C with other languages, like Rust or Python. This is mostly for audio and graphics stuff. With that said: Swift replaced C (and Obj-C) 100% in the Apple world for me. Because the API bindings are as good.