I think people do this for every language. It becomes a part of their identity, and then they have to defend it. I used to do that too, long ago, but I don't have the time or energy for it for the most part, and find it boring, so that $LANG-user-as-identity bit of my has fallen by the wayside.

I don't think it's about adoption levels; sure Go and Rust are tiny compared to JS/python/etc. It's emotional, not about who has the most users or who can even plausibly get there.

Because it triggers the "feeling of other" when someone is so close yet so far ideologically.

I'm sure you know this joke about dogmas :)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26624442

In some sense this is the same as the NIMBY/YIMBY question. There are perfectly valid reasons to want to live like Spacers do on Aurora, yet many prefer the caves.