Everything comes to an end eventually, and there's no strategy to avoiding it. But not trying to adapt to real changes in the environment could certainly be a recipe to hasten that end. And yes, we do really try and make sure that any change we make is more than worth it.

But if in 2026 Java is the third or second most popular language in the world overall and the #1 choice for large applications that are performance-sensitive and/or need to be maintainable, but is it possible that in 20 years, despite our best efforts, Java will decline sharply, perhaps even to the point of being only as popular as, say, Go is today? Sure.

Of course, invoking 'there are two kinds of languages: one that people complain about and one that nobody uses', there are two kinds of language designs: one that is perfectly consistent and one that has had contact with the real world.

The issue is that it's hard to predict how certain features will be misused and even harder to remove a harmful feature from a language. That's why Java goes slow. (Although I think there's too much pussyfooting around string interpolation. But I also think too much type inference makes the code harder to read.)

Not always. See PostgreSQL as a counter example.