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Interoperating with Java was a requirement. That immediately takes simplicity off the table if the goal is to bring FP to the JVM.

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Admittedly this is from a distance, having only toyed a bit with each, but Clojure always seemed much simpler than Scala.

That follows from Clojure being dynamically typed, though. Different design constraints lead to different results.

Why's that?

Types interop on a VM that wasn't designed for a more complex one like Scala has.

Collections interop between Java<->Scala. Scala's (immutable/mutable) collections are not built on the Java ones, and they provide helpers to translate between the two.

Calling conventions, name mangling, Java to Scala issues, etc.

FP doesn't need complex type systems though. And there's not a lot of type stuff on the JVM level, it's more dynamic than you'd think.

I’m not defending Scala design just describing the interop challenges given said design.

Scala was certainly envisioned with a strong type system in mind. The JVM doesn’t mandate mandate that, true, but the compiler they wrote did.

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