A useful criticism, but in this case I don't think it's optimizing for an edge case. There's a power law, or something close to it, when it comes to web developer skill. PHP is so dominant because it requires very little skill to get started, and very little skill to incrementally advance from there.
Other technologies can try to push on the "PHP problem" from above, and they can make a lot of progress, but they won't ever "win" because the inertia of PHP is coming from below. The only way to fully get rid of PHP is to beat it on its home turf, and that's firmly in the "Hello World" realm.
I guess it depends on what the goal is. I personally don't care if anything kills or supplants php. Different people can and should use different tools.
When trying to answer the question of "what tools should I, as a serious professional who is in this for the long-term, choose to work with right now?" it's really short-sighted to balance everything on how easy it is to get to "Hello World".
Other technologies can try to push on the "PHP problem" from above, and they can make a lot of progress, but they won't ever "win" because the inertia of PHP is coming from below. The only way to fully get rid of PHP is to beat it on its home turf, and that's firmly in the "Hello World" realm.