Bjarne was truly correct when he said: "there are languages people complain about, and there are languages nobody uses." I think this is very true, what it say

Bjarne was truly correct when he said: "there are languages people complain about, and there are languages nobody uses." I think this is very true, what it says literally is that popularity and attracting ire are correlated. However, my interpretation is that the reason why this is true is that (1) all languages involve design trade-offs, (2) every trade-off pisses someone off for at least a moment, and (3) popularity attracts eyeballs, therefore more popular languages have more people pissed off. I am not suggesting you say this, but I have heard the (strawman?) argument that it is possible to design a nice, pure language that is above reproach but that it can't be popular, and thus his quote expresses the thought that there is an inverse relationship between elegance and popularity. I don't think this is the case.