With packaging technologies such as Flatpak and Snap, app makers now have the option to distribute a bundled-everything version of their software to Linux users.
This has drawbacks too though, in that it's now up to app makers to take care of keeping supporting libraries up to date and secure. That's not necessarily their top priority though, which is a risk for the end user. Also, unnecessary duplication of libraries increasing memory use, when the distro is able to share most of them. Plus the poor middleman has an incentive to set user-friendly, privacy-preserving defaults that I wouldn't trust as much when the package is provided by a commercial company with different incentives.
It's great to have the option, but overall I would still prefer to use distro packages except in the rare special case.
This has drawbacks too though, in that it's now up to app makers to take care of keeping supporting libraries up to date and secure. That's not necessarily their top priority though, which is a risk for the end user. Also, unnecessary duplication of libraries increasing memory use, when the distro is able to share most of them. Plus the poor middleman has an incentive to set user-friendly, privacy-preserving defaults that I wouldn't trust as much when the package is provided by a commercial company with different incentives.
It's great to have the option, but overall I would still prefer to use distro packages except in the rare special case.