Personally it has never mattered to me how many people adopt Emacs because it has enough users to ensure development forever. I know for a fact that if the Emacs developers weren&#x27;t doing a bang up job, which they are, then I would immediately allocate some of my time to help. 
Emacs is emblematic of the community aspect of software development that rms usually brings up when talking about free software, and I think it&#x27;s a subtle notion that separates Emacs from a typical &quot;open source&quot; project. Projects that are as they say &quot;Open Source&quot; tend to be commercially oriented more than community oriented. 
Whether or not Emacs is a large or small community does not really matter to me, the software is pretty much stable enough that the future is bright even if everyone on the developer mailing list dropped dead.<p>I don&#x27;t mean to complain about &quot;open source&quot; software nor do I claim that the way that Emacs is being developed is better than any other. What I mean to say is that Emacs is an old application and I found it on its old crusty website, decided to dedicate a bunch of time on learning macros, because that&#x27;s simply the kind of person I am. Whether or not Emacs had a great website would not be the factor that swayed me, and frankly I&#x27;m not in the business of trying to sway people as an Emacs fan. Use what you want. I know I&#x27;m getting the best development environment for me, because I know me, and I&#x27;ve made Emacs mine.