This is a great talk on exactly this topic from a Clojure conference, if you want a long answer. It focuses on the “functional” feature of Clojure but all of it applies to the whole language (and probably any good lisp) IMO. https://youtu.be/QyJZzq0v7Z4?si=y3hhYaInMkRLBCJK
My brief text answer (focused on Clojure):
-python has been around about 20 more years than Clojure
-the advantages of Clojure vs python/etc probably aren’t nearly as big as python vs a non memory managed, compiled, static language like C. That whole generation of “scripting” languages had the wind at their backs in a way Clojure and its contemporaries never quite will (though Clojure et al tend to be much better at concurrency and parallelism and this will help a lot)
-unfamiliar syntax (not Algol like) and paradigm (not oop)- and the truth is many programmers back away slowly when a thing is too alien
-hasn’t found a niche as big as data science or scientific computing or CRUD website building - I think python has aggregated some great academic niches, at least one of which (ML/data science) exploded in popularity. Ruby had the rails community. Clojure seems to have some popularity in fintech but has no big single niche yet that it dominates.
My brief text answer (focused on Clojure):
-python has been around about 20 more years than Clojure
-the advantages of Clojure vs python/etc probably aren’t nearly as big as python vs a non memory managed, compiled, static language like C. That whole generation of “scripting” languages had the wind at their backs in a way Clojure and its contemporaries never quite will (though Clojure et al tend to be much better at concurrency and parallelism and this will help a lot)
-unfamiliar syntax (not Algol like) and paradigm (not oop)- and the truth is many programmers back away slowly when a thing is too alien
-hasn’t found a niche as big as data science or scientific computing or CRUD website building - I think python has aggregated some great academic niches, at least one of which (ML/data science) exploded in popularity. Ruby had the rails community. Clojure seems to have some popularity in fintech but has no big single niche yet that it dominates.