There was a good discussion just yesterday, "Why did Visual Basic die?"

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37470318

That might be a place to start looking.

It basically comes down to:b they could take development in any direction and the community of users is powerless.

But why can't you fork it and take it in the direction you want? The situation is literally no different from Python or Node or Ruby, the people running the most popular distribution could take it in a direction you don't like and the power you have (or the only option you have) is forking.

The development for a language like python happens entirely in public though, and is driven by consensus.