The difference it makes is that with PHP being so popular, it gets a lot of support from cheap web hosts (often being the /only/ language supported), and thus if you write software to be deployed, PHP is the only option, thus it gains popularity, thus nothing else gets supported.
I've been working with PHP for ~8 years, having it as my main source for income, and I'm /still/ finding new and interesting things to hate about it on an almost daily basis. I wish I could go and code in a better language, but that's not an option, because cheap shared hosts don't support any better language, because of people like you keeping the PHP ecosystem limping on.
PHP is like javascript: I use it not because it's good, but because it's what's available.
People can bitch about PHP as much as they like, but my project for today is hosted on a server running PHP 5.2.4. I don't even have shell access; only FTP.
I've been working with PHP for ~8 years, having it as my main source for income, and I'm /still/ finding new and interesting things to hate about it on an almost daily basis. I wish I could go and code in a better language, but that's not an option, because cheap shared hosts don't support any better language, because of people like you keeping the PHP ecosystem limping on.