&gt;<i>The whole point of common lisp, the reason it has survived since the beginning of time, is that the language was designed so that language innovation happened by people developing libraries for it.</i><p>And that &quot;whole point&quot; hasn&#x27;t worked very well as to the availability of a rich library ecosystem and&#x2F;or adoption. So, while it&#x27;s a nice trait to have, it&#x27;s perhaps too much of a burden.<p>&gt;<i>But mass adoption isn&#x27;t always the goal.</i><p>True, but it&#x27;s not like CL was designed like some researchy or experimental project that doesn&#x27;t care about mass adoption.