> “But besides adding object orientation to C, he also remembered his earliest design goals for C++. “I wanted very great freedom of expression, very great generality. [...]”
I can only speak from my own experience here, so it's anecdotal, but the main reason I love using C++ is precisely this "great freedom of expression", which is most likely, but at least in part, a direct consequence of the fact that it "tries to be everything to everyone". When writing C++, my mind often wanders and comes up with code and designs that would either be actively discouraged in the majority of other (opinionated) programming languages, or straight up impossible to implement. It's a great and highly valuable (possibly creative) experience that I haven't, to this extent, experienced in any of the other (numerous) languages I've been using. I also feel it makes me a better software engineer as a whole, even when I'm not working with C++ (which is actually most of the time). Beyond that, I also feel it's one of the reasons why C++ is so successful.
Obviously it also leads to the fragmentation you described, and it's perfectly valid to criticize, but I wish people would, more often, at least acknowledge that this kind of programming language is still valuable in certain ways and situations.
Yes, if you are mainly focused on getting a job done with minimum friction (and maybe maximum speed), there is a high chance that there is a language better suited for the task than C++ in today's age. That does not make C++ obsolete, quite the opposite in my opinion. I believe the fact that C++ isn't as opinionated or streamlined as other languages shouldn't be considered an "issue" or a "problem", but a feature.