I got my first job in web development somewhat recently (4 years ago), and that was as a backend PHP developer, working on a product that's about 10 years old but still growing. A lot of the codebase is legacy, but we're continuing to build in php. I think of it as an established language, not a dead one. I think its slow but steady growth gives it momentum that something new and popular that might not have, and may get replaced in a few years with another new popular thing. I had some practice with other languages, but now it's the language I know the best, and I quite like it. It was quite easy to get to grips with, and when you learn to use programming patterns with it, I think it's quite elegant. Most importantly, I think it's an approachable language for people that want to do some web development, but aren't professional developers and might never get to that level, which is totally ok. It also makes development more human, for the average/mid level software dev to work with proficiently, as an alternative to super complex languages and frameworks that only the top devs can understand.