I'm not an open source maintainer or even a dev, but it seems bonkers to me that with all the numerous distributions out there, all facing the same problem of package management, that they couldn't just refocus their combined efforts toward improving Flatpak and guiding it toward universal adoption.

Maybe one reason why many "distributions" exist is that they don't feel like "distributing" the same way :-).

Diversity is good. I don't want "one distribution" that chooses the init system, distribution, compositor, window manager, etc. I want to have choice.

When it comes to distributing packages, I personally like system package managers. Not such a big fan of flatpak.

By that logic, only GNOME is allowed to exist. No thanks. The people in power often make decisions a big chunk of the community disagrees with.

Many people disagree on the idea that flatpack is useful at all.

For example it's completely useless to me. Why do you expect me to help on something I don't use?