> Use a build system like make, you can't just `c++ build`

This is a strength not a weakness because it allows you to choose your build system independently of the language. It also means that you get build systems that can support compiling complex projects using multiple programming languages.

> Understand that C++ compilers by default have no idea where most things are, you have to tell them exactly where to search

This is a strength not a weakness because it allows you to organize your dependencies and their locations on your computer however you want and are not bound by whatever your language designer wants.

> Use an external tool that's not your build system or compiler to actually inform the compiler what those search paths are

This is a strength not a weakness because you are not bound to a particular way of how this should work.

> Oh also understand the compiler doesn't actually output what you want, you also need a linker

This is a strength not a weakness because now you can link together parts written in different programming languages which allows you to reuse good code instead of reinventing the universe.

> That linker also doesn't know where to find things, so you need the external tool to use it

This is a strength not a weakness for the reasons already mentioned above.

> Oh and you still have to use a package manager to install those dependencies to work with pkg-config, and it will install them globally. If you want to use it in different projects you better hope you're ok with them all sharing the same version.

This is a strength not a weakness because you can have fully offline builds including ways to distribute dependencies to air-gapped systems and are not reliant on one specific online service to do your job.

Also all of this is a non-issue if you use a half-modern build system. Conflating the language, compiler, build system and package manager is one of the main reason why I stay away from "modern" programming languages. You are basically arguing against the Unix philosophy of having different tools that work together with each tool focusing on one specific task. This allows different tools to evolve independently and for alternatives to exist rather than a single tool that has to fit everyone.

You can't build things without being part of a culture and understanding the tools that culture uses.

> This is a strength not a weakness

Massive cope, there's no excuse for the lack of decent infrastructure. I mean, the C++ committee for years said explicitly that they don't care about infrastructure and build systems, so it's not really surprising.