I’d say a lot of the complexity comes from the fact that there are at least four things — Jack, PulseAudio, Pipewire and the ALSA userland stuff, which the arti

I’d say a lot of the complexity comes from the fact that there are at least four things — Jack, PulseAudio, Pipewire and the ALSA userland stuff, which the article fails to mention — that try to solve more or less the same problems (probably less, in the case of the ALSA userland). Add to this the fact that everything can be, and often is, run as a compatibility layer on top of (or below) everything else, and the naïve user who just wants to get some music though the speakers can be excused for feeling a bit dizzy.