That's quite normal, because the market today is much larger and diverse. e.g: It doesn't make any sense to build web apps in C or C++ and this type of software is very spread nowadays but was virtually non-existing back then.

The interesting question is what will mobile devices, the IoT and embedded devices in general be programmed in? C and C++ are popular choices today, so the trend is not really "unmistakable".

> Nowadays they're much more specialized: you're as likely to build your company on Java or even Python/Ruby as you are to build it on C++.

Some of today's dominant platforms are developed mostly in Java (see Android), and web development targets the LAMP stack. This means that the business is centered in ventures that exclude most languages, not because there is technical merit on other alternatives.

I'm sure it's possible to gather some individuals that are more than willing to badmouth Java and Python with a passion with the same ease we see here people complaining about C.

Guess which language was used to write your OS, browser, games, compilers, runtimes and so on. If you count the number of hours that people spend on software written with C/C++, I think all other languages would be left in dust.