Not if it were introduced with the original bytecode interpreter. The first few iterations of the Java Virtual Machine were horrifically slow, but it got better

Not if it were introduced with the original bytecode interpreter. The first few iterations of the Java Virtual Machine were horrifically slow, but it got better. So if the Java language and VM were released today in their current state, complete with lambdas, streams, annotations, and HotSpot, then yeah, I think it would take off.