While I agree with your sentiment mostly, I feel Lisp's un-popularity probably has nothing to do with Lisp itself. For that matter, mainstream popularity of an

While I agree with your sentiment mostly, I feel Lisp's un-popularity probably has nothing to do with Lisp itself. For that matter, mainstream popularity of anything has always had a good dose of randomness in it (I bet you can model it with some sort of free energy / entropy equation). For example, it's hard to break down exactly why the No.1 hit song is No.1, or that No.7 song is permanently No.7. Usually it has more to do with the politics of the record company than the quality of the song itself. We are also being a bit pessimistic here. Lisp is not un-popular. It just hasn't reach the critical mass yet. And it seems to be going to that direction with unraveling of Clojure.