This kind of thing reminds me of the backlash against systemd, where detractors felt like it was being imposed on the distributions that were for the most part adopting it because they liked what it offered.
systemd has tried to alter the kernel in breaking ways for it's own ends plenty of times. it's easy enough to not use and plenty of distributions do so with some effort but it's not as if systemd has had zero consequences on the rest of the ecosystem.