To imply that systemd is merely an init system is ingenuous at best and dishonest at worst - systemd is so much more than an init system, as that article mentioned. Since the article was written in 2014 systemd has grown massively in scope, even more than the author feared.

It manages DNS, home directories, system services, seat managment, cron, system logging, booting... the list is ever growing. As such many people fear it is becoming too dominant through making more and more software dependent on it. It is not atomic - it is very difficult to have just one piece of systemd as its parts are tightly integrated and inter-dependent.

One could even claim that systemd failed in it's original remit - to make startup as fast as macOS by running tasks in parallel and by deferring service startup until they are actually needed. The result has been a not very performant init system - many init systems are faster eg runit, dinit. The systemd people now claim that speed is not a design goal.

It is, however, open source and very widely adopted. Most people don't care - they just want to run their browser and word processor.

I came across this blog - What is systemd and Why Should I Care?

A 2014 blog post by someone with the bio "Software Engineer at Microsoft, currently working on Outlook for iOS" should not be a significant influence on the choices you are making about your usage of GNU/Linux in 2023 :)

I use Artix Linux with runit and am happy. Artix offers multiple init systems other than systemd. If you're familiar with using Arch Linux, basically Artix is the same without systemd.

You can install the various ISOs and see the differences for yourself, but the complaints launched against systemd that have any validity are either technical and/or philosophical in nature.

In a lot of ways, systemd has become like the JavaScript of init systems in that it handles a lot more than what it originally was needed for (init starts other processes after boot, JavaScript adds small amounts of interactivity to web pages).

As opposed to what each became (systemd now handles DNS, cron, bootloader, and is a suite of tools tightly coupled with the init system) (JavaScript has now become a scripting language with access to the C level exec library to the point where an OS can and has been written in it).

In the early days of systemd adoption, there was much controversy over its seemingly sudden mass adoption. SysV init needed a modern replacement, and indeed, alternatives like Upstart, openrc, and others were in production to eventually replace it. Lennart Poettering and Kay Sievers over at Red Hat created and heavily promoted systemd.

Lennart was already somewhat beloved/hated in the community as he had developed PulseAudio, which was a boon over the previous Alsa implementation, but was considered bloated and unnecessary by the less audio oriented Linux users of the time. He was inspired to create systemd after researching Apple's new init implementation, launchd.

Controversy spread as Lennart would dismiss adoption of systemd into the BSD family of UNIX like OSes. He also dismissed competitors like Upstart, as their implementation of certain modern features like CGroups was not as developed as systemd at the time. Additionally, Linux users at the time were heavily concerned that Red Hat was trying to take over the entirety of the Linux space, enforcing a more corporate and commercial influence on what had previously been a community more in line with the aims of the FSF.

Much of this culminated in a months long email exchange on the Debian email list, where many of these grievances, pros and cons of systemd adoption, and overall discourse around this topic took place in 2013-2014. Eventually the result was that Debian adopted systemd as the default init system, which along with Fedora, Arch, and other distros, sealed the fate of other alternative init systems as being fringe, out of date, and irrelevant.

More and more system admins would learn the ins and outs of systemd as it would become required for their jobs, and the criticism of systemd became more and more quiet as it just became part of the every day Linux experience.

Truth be told, the birth of systemd really heralded in the death of the UNIX philosophy as an old way of thinking about software development and program scope. Doing one thing only, and doing it well, while looking good on paper, and oftentimes is a good general rule of thumb, doesn't apply to modern application development, for better and worse.

I personally like runit not for its speed, but for its simplicity. I can peruse the C code in an afternoon and appreciate it for what it is, an init system. I can't say the same when I look at systemd's code.

But most could care less. As long as it works. And all the power to them...

It does surprise me somewhat, however, that Linux users will condemn bloated browsers, electron apps, and text editors, but will give a pass to systemd, which holds so much more importance over whether pid 1 even launches and starts user space.

Let the downvoting commence.

Systemd is what most programs and systems have come to expect, and you shouldn't bother changing your init system unless you have a VERY GOOD REASON.

Some people hate it for not following the unix philosophy of doing one thing and doing it well, but at this point nothing does except stuff like cat.

is there any reason why I should even care about the freedom of init system?

Freedom of choice! It's troublesome if distros and/or DEs rely so heavily on systemd to do their bidding. So much so, that some combinations of distro + DE don't allow any differentiation in init or make it very cumbersome and unwieldy at best. I'm not interested in making systemd a necessary part of Linux. Therefore other inits not only have to exist, but should be 'competitive' as well. Which, to be frank, is currently not the case.

Another concern is that systemd is by no means a minimalist approach. Which beyond bloat, also has security implications. More information can be found in this (infamous) guide by Madaidan; security researcher on multiple distros known for taking security and privacy very seriously like e.g. Kicksecure and Whonix. Interestingly, while Madaidan discourages the use of systemd in that guide, it's still heavily relied on in Kicksecure; one of the distros he works on. I think this is a perfect illustration of how systemd has become so good that even opponents can't deny its merits and continue to make use of it for the time being out of necessity.

not on the level of a power user

Learns kernel basics

Bro i think you may be underestimating yourself

I think the init system matters A LOT! Systemd is anti-unix-style and making it a "new default" and forcing it, by depending on it, is breaking the best os-design there is: the unix-like system. (who changes it will be forced to reinvent it...better stay close to the original vision in the first place)

If you're into kernel hacking, you may consider supporting the HyperbolaBSD project, which seems much more promising than hurd.