I am not sure about it being dead. But I can give you my perspective.
I started front-end programming in 2016 when Angular2 was still in beta and they cautioned about breaking changes. So I considered React and Vue, and ended up using React not because I thought it was better than Vue, but I had deadlines and could easily ask my friends who were already using React about challenges I might face. At the time Angular2 documentation was limited to TypeScript and it added the friction of understanding a newer language (however similar to JS) before getting down to business.
I feel a lot of developers might have faced similar issues. React was already stable and used by so many developers. The easy availability, clear documentation and huge community support made it a winner for me.
I intend to give Vue and Angular 4 a try as well in the near future for some personal projects.