> Note that none of your criticism about Docker applies to Podman.
It's not a criticism of docker. It's "docker does the same thing", because there are good reasons to abstract that functionality. I'm not familiar with podman internals.
> Why would I ever want to use containers with a tool that ...
Because you have to deal with those things always. You can do them yourself, you can do them with other services, or your can do them in the currently-most-common framework of systemd. You can still pick and choose from those elements as you want.
> You're just working at a higher level of abstraction, which can be comforting, but simplifying would be to use the underlying systems directly or using a tool that only focuses on a single aspect
I don't really see the namespaces and service management as different things. They're pretty much one idea these days.
It's also simplifying things because I can write my own script with the necessary unshare / mount / ip stuff. But the common patterns are repeating so much, I'd rather use a single option for it.
> Great, then the article shouldn't import systemd bindings
They're not bindings, just abstraction. Why should that be treated differently from "shouldn't import fmt, just concatenate strings", "shouldn't use rand, just open /dev/urandom"?
> My point is that the program is now tied to systemd systems.
Only in these examples. Actual apps normally autodetect the relevant variables and not rely on activation if it's not available. You're never tied to systemd activation / keep alive notification unless you choose to do it.