There may be lots of uninformed post-hoc rationalizations now, but it couldn't have started with everyone collectively deciding to irrationally dislike Ada, and not even try it. I suspect it's not even the ignorant slander that is the cause of Ada's unpopularity.
Other languages survive being called designed by committee or having ugly syntax. People talk shit about C++ all the time. PHP is still alive despite getting so much hate. However, there are rational reasons why these languages are used, they're just more complicated than beauty of the language itself, and are due to complex market forces, ecosystems, unique capabilities, etc.
I'm not qualified to answer why Ada isn't more popular, but an explanation implying there was nothing wrong with it, only everyone out of the blue decided to irrationally dislike it, seems shallow to me.
Other languages survive being called designed by committee or having ugly syntax. People talk shit about C++ all the time. PHP is still alive despite getting so much hate. However, there are rational reasons why these languages are used, they're just more complicated than beauty of the language itself, and are due to complex market forces, ecosystems, unique capabilities, etc.
I'm not qualified to answer why Ada isn't more popular, but an explanation implying there was nothing wrong with it, only everyone out of the blue decided to irrationally dislike it, seems shallow to me.