I think the branding hurt it for years. It was perceived as a variant of C++. That didn't work, because it's definitely not C++, so C++ programmers would say "b

I think the branding hurt it for years. It was perceived as a variant of C++. That didn't work, because it's definitely not C++, so C++ programmers would say "but it does X different from C++ so it's wrong". And nobody else wanted C++. It's a variant of C, even to the point of compiling C code. The downside to that is that C isn't exactly the hottest language among people under 50.