To answer your question anyway, raspberry Pi made the rp2040 chip, which is a microcontroller similar to the esp, instead of a full fat computer SOC

Many. But there too, I’m seeing many people move to VScode + platformio. I’m not saying Arduino is already dead, I’m just saying that the alternatives were already gaining ground.

Maybe it’s just what I’ve been noticing, but I feel like Arduino was already losing its share of the hobbyist market. The plethora of small, cheap esp32 devices have already been taking Arduino’s place.