Why does that matter? If version 1 is bad, we should never use any newer versions because version 1 was bad? The iPhone didn't support 3g in the first version, so we shouldn't use current iPhones?
You make it sound like it's some kind of popularity contest, where people not choosing the language means it 'loses'. I disagree pretty heavily there - your hammer doesn't lose if you use your saw. The language's user loses if he is such a fanboy of hammers he refuses to use the saw. If Java improves to become the best tool (not saying it has/will), then choosing not use use Java because you 'moved on', is a failure on your part, not the tool.
The thing with analogies is that you have to know when they break down.
Sure the language loses. An hammer is self-sufficient; a language needs libraries, community support, job/project candidates that can replace an absent developer, etc. Do you think having NumPy isn't a win for Python?
Of course, if the language is sufficiently better than the others, maybe you're willing to write your own e.g. Websockets library to use it. But there's still a large handicap there.
For example, Plan9 is in many ways a better OS than GNU/Linux. But I still use the latter, because I rather have the support and thousands of binary packages that a larger community brings.
