All alloys of steel have strengths and weaknesses. That is why there are so many of them. In the past, carbon steels offered better qualities for knives and cutting tools. Thats not really the case today. There are stainless steels out there that can easily perform as good or better, but they are generally not cheap. There are also semi-stainless steels that have their own attributes and can make very very good knives.
There are several factors that drive the perception that stainless steel is inferior to carbon steel. Mainly the price points are different. A basic carbon steel like 1095 is dirt cheap and simple to heat treat, giving you a good quality blade(that will rust away in a heartbeat without care) at a bargain price. This is the type of steel you find in an old timer pocket knife. 440A stainless is going to come in at the same price point, but its a bottom of the barrel stainless. You have to spend more to get into the high performance stainless steels.So yeah, for the price carbon steel wins, but flat out performance there are stainless steels that can out do it.
Secondly, most of the high performance stainless steels are harder or contain more carbides than the carbon steels we're used to. So they require a higher performance abrasive when it comes to sharpening them. If you want to sharpen both steels on your old arkansas stone, the carbon will come out the winner. If you step up to diamond hones and ceramic you will find that the stainless is no big deal.
Demand is definitely for stainless blades in the commercial market, and your choices for carbon steel are getting fewer all the time. Another factor many people don't know about is the heat treating process. Carbon steels generally are oil hardening (some are also quenched in water or brine) which gives off all kinds of fumes and smoke, and generally leaves a good bit of scale behind to grind away. This is getting harder to do on a mass production basis because of the environmental restrictions, and it can be expensive. Most stainless steels on the other hand, are air hardening alloys which means that you pull them from the oven/furnace and simply air cool them or press them between aluminum plates to harden them. This eliminates the need for a temp controlled oil bath, all the fumes, and some of the scale, making it much easier to set up for and probably more cost effective in a mass production setting. So there's another reason you don't see carbon steel blades used commerically as often.