Java was probably close to 50% of the job market at some point in the 2000s and C significantly dried up with C++ taking its place. So I'm afraid everyone was right actually.
To be honest, I'm convinced the reason so many people dislike Java is because they have had to use it in a professional context only. It's not really a hobbyist language.
Just for the record, I don't think C ever dried up in the embedded space. And the embedded space is waaaay bigger than most people realise, because almost all of it is proprietary, so very little "leaks" onto the public interwebs.
In our uni (around 1998/99) all professors said that except the Haskell teacher who indeed called Java a mistake (but c also).