I think the news of PHP's death came a bit too early. Most people I know claimed it was dead during the time Node was getting popular and people started pushing for things like websockets to make updating pages faster. PHP couldn't do that so people said it would die, and honestly if you were in a startup or a FAANG at the time it looked like it would. Everyone was moving from a REST web 2.0 model to a "live, concurrent users" model.
But the trend didn't continue. People did it for a whilw, but then moved on to other models which still worked for PHP because few apps really need live data and concurrency like that.
The problem for PHP is that the reputation for being "a dying language" stuck.
That reputation is only viewed that way by a tiny number of nerds, typically with static language backgrounds that don't ship much code or product.
I added more value to a tech agency and their clients with PHP than several of the senior Java guys did combined. And they were talented. Just set in their ways and lacked a focus of getting things done and adding value.
They'd waste time overbuilding shit that nobody used because it was interesting to them, not that it would create value for the client or end-users.
Also, I took over several large Node projects built by hipsters and they are the messiest code bases I've ever seen. And I've inherited a lot of trash PHP ones over the years.
Regarding the concurrency thing with PHP - ReactPHP is very nice, PHP 7 and on performance gains were massive, and real-time (search, chat, etc) can be better handled by Algolia/Pusher/etc anyway.
The Node hype train had a great run. And I still like Node. But PHP is the language of getting shit done.
But the trend didn't continue. People did it for a whilw, but then moved on to other models which still worked for PHP because few apps really need live data and concurrency like that.
The problem for PHP is that the reputation for being "a dying language" stuck.