I think that popularity is probably indicative of other qualities of a language, and at the very least, I think being popular is a good feature in itself (in terms of getting support, libraries, documentation etc)

Platforms are products that sell languages, not the other way around.

So being popular just means having the luck to be on a platform that is doing well.

Usually most programming languages fade way when that platform stops being relevant, as history has proven a couple of times.