It failed to catch on outside the defense industry because that is where is started. It was long sneered at as a "language designed by committee".
In one programming class, in college, we used a text-book called "Oh my, Modula 3!". On the back they explained the title, saying "better 'Oh my, Modula 3!' than 'Oh no, Ada!'".
Whenever you extrapolate the "corporate vision" of these VC pontificators, you see a company all of whose revenue goes to investor share-grabbers, and whose projects are all funded by employees who are paid nothing.
I think we'll be led by a programmer from another language who comes and unites the tribes against the languages that now dominate, a voice from the outer world. The "Lispan al-Gaib", if you will.