Why is Common Lisp not the most popular programming language?

A February 2024 Hacker News thread with over 300 comments discussed Common Lisp's persistent adoption issues. Participants raised a mix of technical complaints, including linked list performance, pathname abstractions, and inconsistent REPL behavior, alongside ecosystem problems such as package fragmentation and limited documentation. The original post attributed Common Lisp's stagnation to the absence of a centralized fundraising or coordinating body comparable to Python’s PSF, citing PyCon's reported $1.2M in revenue as an example of what such structures enable.

Many responses disputed that explanation, arguing that structural funding alone would not address deeper constraints. Frequently cited factors included macro-heavy DSL usage leading to hard-to-maintain code, lack of long-term corporate backing when compared to languages like Rust or Python, and a high initial learning curve that limits early adoption. The thread did not converge on a single cause, leaving governance, language design, and historical timing as competing explanations.