I've used PHP early in my career (around the time PHP 5 came about), and I was never a fan, but to claim that you can't built successful products with it is simply crazy: look at Facebook, Wordpress just to name the two!

And similarly, "Python for scripting" (Instagram?)... It's the effectiveness you achieve with it that is perfect for many new projects, based on language itself (dynamism, introspectiveness, readability...) and rich standard library and ecosystem.

I'd say you are not looking objectively at language choices despite the evidence being there in plain sight to counter the claims you are making.