your argument that a text editor is not going to be popular because you need to install a dozen plugins to match what would be considered "modern" doesn't add up. I can see a thousand reasons why emacs is not popular but having to install plugins is not one of them. VSCode itself needs a bunch of plugins for certain languages, and even if you used it for the out the box languages (e.g. JavaScript) there's a couple of things missing that and IDE would have out the box (I agree that emacs would need much more plugins compared to VSCode).
Also, look at vim/neovim. They are still one of the most popular text editors (much more popular than emacs for example), look at the stackoverflow developer survey, in the last one neovim was ranked the most loved text editor and vim is ALWAYS ranked between on of the most used editors. You need a dozen plugins if you want anything close to a modern IDE, yet they are still very popular and used.
Agreed about plugins. The main nice thing about VSCode is that it installs and reasonably-configures needed plugins as needed (though Spacemacs does this, too).
Also, look at vim/neovim. They are still one of the most popular text editors (much more popular than emacs for example), look at the stackoverflow developer survey, in the last one neovim was ranked the most loved text editor and vim is ALWAYS ranked between on of the most used editors. You need a dozen plugins if you want anything close to a modern IDE, yet they are still very popular and used.