So to state my hypothesis briefly: people today are both less predisposed to understand Perl, and have easy access to so many other alternatives. It’s a rather unsatisfactory explanation, but it’s the closest I can get.
I think I would argue that /cgi-bin folder configuration and !# complexities killed it. LAMP servers could have jsut as easily been Perl, but were instead PHP. The brash new star of the early 2000s web development.
The creator of PHP just like the creator of JavaScript was just trying to solve a problem. Get Server rendering and html mixed together. I don’t think anyone creating a tool today would think ‘ah yes billions of people will now use this`
Quote Citation: kqr, “What Killed Perl?”, 2025-11-18, https://entropicthoughts.com/what-killed-perl