There is no language other than C and C++ that is mature enough that you can actually discard the implicit runtime stuff and still be able to code in the language. C++ is too complex in my opinion so I only get to use C as a minimal language.
Even if you look at a language like Zig. You have implicit error trace printing stuff that is inaccurate when using optimized builds, you get a very bad fuzz implementation that doesn't work properly, you get comptime reflection which will be insane in the hands of the people that are writing rust now. Also a bunch of features you would want to use to discard the runtime are not documented/stable.
You can't even use Odin without libc as far as I can understand.
Hare doesn't even have inline asm.
Contrast with using C with clang/gcc where you can do '-nostdinc' '-nostdlib', then implement memcpy etc. and you can do w/e you want after that.
Rust as a nother example is trash for doing low level projects without pulling the 10billion lines of code that comes with using rust like libc/stdlib/binding libaries etc. etc.
You can use libraries that other people built in Rust but doing it yourself takes much more time than doing it in a language like C or Zig.
Another thing is, C is easy to implement. Implementing Rust/C++/Zig or any of the other languages is basically impossible in comparison.
Also I found that C is the only language that you can go into a very big project and open a random file and roughly understand what is going on. This is not possible in any of these other laguages other than Zig and I suspect it will get very bad in Zig when(if) the lower skill level people that are currently writing Rust start moving to writing Zig.
In 1994 even dialup internet connections were rare and most software distribution occurred by floppy disk (encased in hardshell plastic). _storage_ space was also at a major premium with internal hard disk size indexed in CHS rather than LBA and new (rarely seen by most end consumers) models barely passing 1GB in capacity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seagate_Barracuda
Even in the early 'dot com' era as DSL and early cable modem became common downloading software updates could still be painful, though far less so than hours or days on dialup.