The landscape changed quite a bit with Google officially(?) backing Kotlin and Kotlin’s popularity skyrocketing as a result. I think Kotlin is a great “better java”. I think Scala has the potential to be its own thing and a better language instead and that trying to be a better Java in the current landscape is a loosing fight anyway.
Now, I guess these real life concerns have to be contrasted with the fact that a “better Java” will always have an easier time to get Java devs converted. So long as there is a decently sized and preferably growing community of companies and devs using idiomatic Scala I think it’s fine to accept that Scala is never going to be the dominant alternative language on the JVM, given the obvious non-technical advantages of competitors.
If someone would like a “better Java” they’d very likely see a lot of Scala’s distinguishing features as unneeded complexity and would go With Kotlin.