I'm not arguing that packaging shouldn't be done but that it should be done, and is in fact commonly done by upstream developers. What things like docker, snap

I'm not arguing that packaging shouldn't be done but that it should be done, and is in fact commonly done by upstream developers. What things like docker, snap and flatpak allow is packaging things up in a distribution independent way. Which means it can be done by the developers of the software directly. Of course the landscape is a bit fragmented and you could also see this as yet another package variety to support and there is the usual bit of tribalism around which to use and not to use. But overall, it means a lot of software is now available that you would in the past have had to install via distribution specific packages.