I think it should have been pretty obvious to most people that V was never a serious language project. Because of successful marketing, an amateurs toy language project somehow became a viral success, which it has been unsuccessfully trying to justify ever since.
Although with a surprising ~1k/mo of funding, I'm really curious if there might actually be a chance V will eventually be a somewhat useful project long-term, if the funding keeps up.
It's almost tautological, but outside of academia, languages tend to become relevant and useful because software gets written in them. If the funding stays, then it's only a matter of time before one of the non-zero people interested in V writes something useful in it. The problem then reduces to whether that happens before the funding/development stops.
C alternatives/rehashes are probably on the same order of magnitude as C programmers. Years ago, I would eagerly hop from one to the other until they eventually died, so I can understand the appetite. Nowadays, I'm more aware of the costs of not using something that is well-established. I'm glad people keep making them and will never discourage learning, exploration, and experimentation, but I think they're generally a waste of time for everyone who isn't the author/maintainer.
On the other hand, there's a certain language where I felt (and still feel) it had no good technical reason to exist or be used at launch. At launch, I didn't take it seriously and was irritated when people started using it. However, it had the backing of a multibillion dollar company, a somewhat stable implementation with tooling, and users who were clearly enthusiastic regardless of what I thought. Now, there's actual libraries written in it and I can't find the effort to be angry. The existence of an ecosystem made the language useful.
Depends on the definition of "serious" you want to use. The V developer might have thought he was serious, but the most superficial critique of his claims showed he wasn't realistic. So being charitable, V is something between a amateurs pipe-dream and a joke.
Similarly...not seeing so much shilling for Mill these days. Anyone using that oft promised 'simulator' yet?
Although with a surprising ~1k/mo of funding, I'm really curious if there might actually be a chance V will eventually be a somewhat useful project long-term, if the funding keeps up.