The Mojang to Microsoft and Java to Bedrock migrations have lost me as a customer. I have a text file of passwords and I have no idea which is which and constantly get it wrong. Once I get in, it's the same nightmare to get someone else in. I also apparently have two launchers on my PC now? I would play more if this was easy. My kids would play more if this was easy. Opportunity lost.
There hasn't been one of these? You can have both Java and Bedrock versions on Windows, yes, but there's been no requirement to move from Java to Bedrock (yet.)
If I remember correctly, they've stated they don't have plans to ever migrate from Java to Bedrock. They've been doing a lot of work to try to get parity between the two versions but they're architecturally very different.
I'd be surprised if they hung Java out to dry - it's definitely seen as the "definitive" version of Minecraft among most of the dedicated playerbase. Although, Bedrock definitely seems like it's their big money maker with how many microtransactions are in it.
The Java version is the one with mods. The mods are several times the size of the base game at this point. If Microsoft said they were going to quit development on it many players would just shrug their shoulders and keep playing the last released java version forever. There would definitely be modpacks that recreated any features added to Bedrock if this happened.
Maybe if Bedrock got an officially supported API, especially one that is stable between releases so people don't have to redo their mods for every release, then it might start pulling in players. But honestly, they'd probably charge for the API and it would be stillborn.
Heck, 1.7 is STILL one of the most popular versions for the modded scene, and it came out in 2014 (because it was an unusually long gap between updates, as was 1.8 which a lot of mods didn't bother updating to due to not much being added to the base game).
1.7 has RTG [1], can be worth a try. I always enjoyed the RTG worlds, but now I am mostly playing skyblock(-ish) packs, so I do not really care about terrain anymore.
Oh, I thought RTG was all about removing floating islands and making the mountains more mountainous. I didn't realize it also made the huge cave systems you get with 1.18.
