Things like CNI take away from the development and understanding of general networking technology to scripts and json/yaml wrappers that not only add another layer of complexity but also prevent users from understanding what they are actually using.

For instance in this post itself we learn about all these CNI wrappers but learn nothing about Vxlan, BGP and Linux networking tools that these are using underneath. And those are actually easy to use directly. This does a disservice to both developers and users.

For instance true game changers in this space is tech like Wireguard that can deliver encryption at near line speed and would kill these benchmarks. Everyone can benefit from Wireguard today. Initiatives like CNI encourage wrappers and those then wrapping tools like Wireguard end up getting the recognition and success while the underlying tools like Wireguard fade into the background. This does not seem like a healthy or sustainable development model.