But C is the default and canonical programming model. It is the native language of every major operating system. It is the language most closely tied to mains

But C is the default and canonical programming model. It is the native language of every major operating system. It is the language most closely tied to mainstream ISA assembly, and—symbiotically—which mainstream archs have tried to optimize for. It's one of few languages that are completely public, in the sense that it is not de jure or de facto owned by a single market participant. And it is the only language that both has standardized ABIs (per platform) but API and ABI compatibility implemented in a huge number of other languages. There is no extern "Rust" {} in C++. There is no with Convention => Swift in Ada. There is extern "C" and with Convention => C exactly because because C is the de facto standard that everything has to interface with.