MatLab is overly expensive. MatLab licenses have been overly costly for academia and industry. There is a massive migration to Python (data), which is free and of great utility. For example, Spyder (which directly uses python) is very similar to MatLab and is free. Why would someone pay for something expensive when they do not need to? Many universities are abandoning MatLab all together. As fewer students learn MatLab in academia, this will further drive industry to stop using MatLab as well. The end of MatLab is near, unless there is an obvious advantage to its cost. Right now there is no obvious justification.
Here are some interesting articles and pages to back up that there is a strong movement to indicate that MatLab is dying:
https://benfrantzdale.livejournal.com/266123.html
https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-future-of-MATLAB
https://www.quora.com/Is-MATLAB-slowly-dying-out-in-neuroscience-If-so-why
https://www.econjobrumors.com/topic/is-matlab-dying-among-the-economists