this is sad

Not really advocating, just clarifying the motivation behind the simplified dependency model used in projects like flatpak, Limba, etc instead of apt, libsolv, etc. The optimal model is probably somewhere between those extremes: a mixture of aggregation to simplify the dependency graph for common cases, and isolation to allow individual applications and the host system to resolve dependencies without disrupting each other.

It's a safe bet that most users do want to enable someone else to make an apparently monolithic supportable package (or least an aggregation of components that behave as a single unit) out of thousands of mundane technical choices on their behalf. Those that want to make choices themselves self-select themselves away from the rest of us--they just build what they need from source without bothering anyone.