That's the process for building and installing packages though. I'm talking about writing new ones, on a system with nothing else installed. I'm omnivorous but

That's the process for building and installing packages though. I'm talking about writing new ones, on a system with nothing else installed. I'm omnivorous but I get paid for web development and that's what most people I know are most interested in. And like I said, they understand Makefiles and make, but autotools and Meson are not "basic C build tools," they're both extremely complex and relatively niche. I'm not saying you shouldn't use the tools you use, but you should understand that they are not popular or well-understood outside of your niche of Linux programming with C. I'm sure these programmers could learn how to use them, but most are going to choose not to if it's the easiest way to use the language. They will pick something else.