ava's design allows app development and performance to be decoupled (to a good extent, when compared to C or C++). Combined with the lower learning curve (again, compared to that which ruled before - aka C++), this commoditizes app development and has hence found much adoption in industry, leaving a small team of specialists to work on performance (& the jvm). Adoption leads to funds leads to research and/or improvements until Java expanded to include much of what needed to be done via programming, in other words, you can get almost everything you want done in java. In other words, Java is an industry standard, or if you will, a household name. So why do we need Java ? same reason as we need division of labour.

Currently, the JVM usually outperforms everything other than C or C++, and those are only fast until they blow up randomly because humans can't write 100% flawless code.

Many companies depend on Java for their mission critical infrastructure and applications.

I used to work at a world leading investment bank who's entire low latency, high scalable trading platforms were built in Java.

Just about every large financial firm that I've worked at plus both telco firms and one management consultancy used Java to build large, fast and scalable applications.

You may have no use for Java in your small bubble of a world where you most probably work on insignificant, crappy pay and waste of time projects, but people who work on important stuff in the real world do. I'm sure other people can tell you why Java is important in ways that I cannot. I just get annoyed when I see people slag off a piece of technology just because they don't use it or like it.

Because it powers tens of thousands of huge systems in use?

How about that?

Have you tried programming BEFORE Java, when the same kind of systems were done in C++ with CORBA or similar monstrosities?