We're using lots of RabbitMQ queues in production. It works well, is efficient, low-maintenance and scales well up to 10k msg/s. By all means, I'd say queues aren't unpopular. It's just that I'm not the kind of person to loudly shill whatever tech I'm using, so you probably won't hear from people like me without asking.
And for a consulting company, a solid message-based deployment is not a good business strategy. If things just work and temporary load spikes get buffered automatically, there's very little reason for clients to buy a maintenance retainer.
And for a consulting company, a solid message-based deployment is not a good business strategy. If things just work and temporary load spikes get buffered automatically, there's very little reason for clients to buy a maintenance retainer.