If a language is unpopular, people won't want to work for you and you'll run into poor support. Rewriting a library may take months of dev time, whereas C has an infinite number of libraries to work with and examples to look at.

wears math hat

C does not have an infinite number of libraries and examples. The number of libraries and examples C has is quite large, and there are an infinite number of theoretically possible libraries and examples, but the number of libraries and examples that exist are finite.

The infinite is a convenient abstraction of the finite.

Moving goalposts regarding systems programming languages features, some on the group predate C by a decade.

Being old doesn't mean anyone knows the language. I mean if the language predates C significantly and nobody uses is then there's probably a really good for it. The goalposts aren't moving they're just missing the shot

Popularity isn't a measure of quality. Never has been and certainly not in the case of programming languages.

There is unpopular - and then there is can I get a working toolchain for modern OS that’s not emulated.

Still not a measure of quality.

Are we having a discussion about the greatest language of all time? What’s your context here.