It's pretty sad. I personally believe the ecosystem would be in a much more vibrant state today, if the creator had formally abandoned the language at any point in the past, as there are many who would pick up the torch.
It is telling that several people who could once have been considered 'core team' are now building their own languages:
I think personal experience with multiple paradigms is essential for a developer to decide which one they prefer.
The opinions of programmers who have only used one paradigm are less than worthless, since they are demonstrating a basic lack of curiosity and lack of willingness to invest in their craft.
Yeah Solidity has many resources and is worth learning. Solana is another smart contract platform which uses Rust, and Rust is a fantastic language, though it is tough.
Both ecosystems use Node.js for scripting/tests/frontend so that is going to be advantage to learn.
Look into web3/blockchain/NFT technology, most of it has been around less than 2 years so experience is less of a hard requirement than in other fields of software engineering.