I'd argue that PHP has been popular because it makes hiring a developer optional for the vast majority of folks who want to put up a website. In the days before

I'd argue that PHP has been popular because it makes hiring a developer optional for the vast majority of folks who want to put up a website. In the days before Facebook et al. Your options were Geocities and family or a cheap shared host with apache and PHP3-4. When the most sophisticated portions of a site were a gallery and contact form, the "put files here, done" methodology is pretty hard to beat. It being a "bad language" is irrelevant for someone who's end result requirement is a functional page over technological purity. Disclosure: I develop mainly in C#