Personally I dislike AppImages, Snap, Flatpack, Docker, etc. for one main reason:
If an app is so hard to distribute in any other way, that to me is a red flag that the app is not up to my quality standards or otherwise violates my sensibilities in some way. On my Linux desktop, I am very much in the camp of "that which exists without my knowledge exists without my consent".
(I fully recognize that I am extreme outlier in general, and perhaps a slight outlier among Linux users. Just offering one perspective, I make no claims that this it the correct perspective for most Linux users.)
> If an app is so hard to distribute in any other way, that to me is a red flag that the app is not up to my quality standards or otherwise violates my sensibilities in some way.
I have run across the periodic application that violates both my quality standards and sensibilities, yet I find indispensable. An example here is the e-reader software KOReader. It makes zero sense as a desktop application since it is designed to run on dedicated tablets hardware with e-ink screens. It is not packaged by many distributions, likely because few people would be interested in maintaining such a package.
So why would I want to use it on a desktop? Because the breadth and depth of features are unmatched. In my case, I am willing to put up with a quirky black and white touch based interface[1] in order to have access to those features on my laptop. So I use the AppImage.
While I dislike the mentioned distribution formats for the reasons you mentioned, some software is so wonderful[2] that it's warts should be ignored.
[1] It does have keyboard controls. In verifying a couple of details for this post, I also discovered that it can be controlled from a gamepad. Connecting my laptop to a television and sitting back to read a book with only a gamepad in hand is something that I am going to have to try one day.
[2] And sometimes that wonderfulness extends beyond features. The lua based portions of KOReader are sufficiently clear that I was able to create a profile for an e-reader (tablet) that is so new to the market that it isn't yet supported in the release version (the e-reader is only about a month old, while release versions of the software come out every four to eight weeks).
Yep, that is super reasonable. I also will use them if that is my only option. So in that sense I guess I'm am thankful they exist, I just don't want them to become to default or even mainstream.
"Quality standards" like using whatever old version of library the distro provides. And yes it's a madhouse both for app developers and for distro developers
This problem is exacerbated by things like the Canonical interview process where your hiring is intrinsically tied to having drank the whole koolaid and thinking it's the best thing around
We need a linux distro made by people who hate linux. People who buy no excuses. Maybe then things will work
If an app is so hard to distribute in any other way, that to me is a red flag that the app is not up to my quality standards or otherwise violates my sensibilities in some way. On my Linux desktop, I am very much in the camp of "that which exists without my knowledge exists without my consent".
(I fully recognize that I am extreme outlier in general, and perhaps a slight outlier among Linux users. Just offering one perspective, I make no claims that this it the correct perspective for most Linux users.)