I’m curious how System76 sees Pop_OS fitting into their business model which is primarily hardware.
Well, except for the crappy BT audio, but IIUC that problem isn't listed to Pop_OS.
Depends on if they've updated to PipeWire or not. PulseAudio/ALSA are terrible at negotiating Bluetooth connections, but PipeWire has been rock-solid in my experience. Since Pop is still on x11 they probably haven't updated yet, but it's likely coming soon.
Thats how you make something that doesnt look good or function that well because you're focusing on too much.
They are taking the Apple path with linux. Make the hardware and make the software tailored for the hardware for a great experience. Yes they support people installing on stuff other than their hardware, but they make sure their hardware is supported and runs well.
Isn't there a more reasonable middle-ground, e.g. just saying "we officially support Ubuntu / Fedora" or something like that, and making sure those two distros actually work well out of the box?
As an anecdote, I have got my framework laptop this summer, and it works really well out of the box pretty much anywhere. I'd argue that framework is a pretty direct competitor to system76, except framework seems to be innovating on the hardware part rather than the Linux distro part. Which makes way more sense business-wise to me.