Systemd pissed off many people. For me and most users, the transition was fully imperceptible. With the difference that systemctl tools seem to work better for what it does than the many sparse different tools it replaced.
> the transition was fully imperceptible A normal user will never really link the features they see or do not see back to the init system. I'll draw a parallel with the worst subsystem being cut out of modern Linux - X Windows. As far as I can tell Linux is missing good macro systems that can record actions taken by a user, then replay them. For loops for non programmers, basically. This isn't because the idea is rad…
systemd became the de-facto default init sys because Distro Maintainers have chosen it. I posted this link here before, but I will happily post it again: https://www.reddit.com/r/archlinux/comments/4lzxs3/why_did_a...
Such a thing doesn't happen if the thing offered isn't an improvement over what was before.
As a matter of fact, this doesn't even happen if the thing offered is only a small improvement. We have seen this time and time again in Programmig languages: Exciting, clever new things that offer real advantages vanishing into obscurity because while they were better, they were not better by a large enough margin.
Diversity is great if it offers advantages. Different kinds of RDBMS are a good example. Different kinds of shells. Rust being there as a C alternative, Go being there as a Java alternative, Julia as a possible Python alternative, WASM instead of JS. All great.
But keeping something mainstream just because its different, adds no value. People can and do still use other init systems, but I am very glad I no longer have to wrestle 400-line sh init scripts on my production servers.