I understand why there's all this concern about making Emacs popular--as software professionals, we've all seen a few tools that we use and love wither at the vine and die slow deaths. But the concern for _overall_ popularity is a little misplaced. There's more developers than ever, and the pie continues to grow; Emacs just needs a sufficient total userbase to stay maintained, and that seems already to be in place.
The greatest threat to Emacs, as to any other fairly well-liked open-source editor, is a paradigm change in how software gets built or run, not whether it has 7% or 9% mindshare.
The greatest threat to Emacs, as to any other fairly well-liked open-source editor, is a paradigm change in how software gets built or run, not whether it has 7% or 9% mindshare.