Why is Python so popular despite being so slow?

Is Python really slow?

Yes, it is.

If so, why is it so popular?

Because it doesn't matter most of the time.

Python makes you (the programmer) much more productive. Software performance is overrated - programmer performance tends to be more important nowadays.

Have a look at the most popular Python projects - they are not really performance-critical. Even if they are, you can write the critical parts of them in C/C++ and all that remains in Python!

I'll end this post with a quote from Don Knuth - probably the greatest computer scientist alive:
"Programmers waste enormous amounts of time thinking about, or worrying  about, the speed of noncritical parts of their programs, and these attempts at efficiency actually have a strong negative impact when  debugging and maintenance are considered. We should forget about small efficiencies, say about 97% of the time: premature optimization is the root of all evil.”

Source: https://www.quora.com/Why-is-Python-so-popular-despite-being-so-slow