IMO, Kubernetes isn't inevitable, and this seems to paint it as such.
K8s is well suited to dynamically scaling a SaaS product delivered over the web. When you get outside this scenario - for example, on-prem or single node "clusters" that are running K8s just for API compatibility, it seems like either overkill or a bad choice. Even when cloud deployed, K8s mostly functions as a batteries-not-included wrapper around the underlying cloud provider services and APIs.
There are also folks who understand the innards of K8s very well that have legitimate criticisms of it - for example, this one from the MetalLB developer: https://blog.dave.tf/post/new-kubernetes/
Before you deploy something, actually understand what the pros/cons are, and what problem it was made to solve, and if your problem isn't at least mostly a match, keep looking.
Kubernetes, in the form of k3s, was a critical success factor for us with the onprem deployment of our SaaS product.
What's the problem with a single-node cluster? We use that for e.g. dev environments, as well as some small onprem deployments.
> Even when cloud deployed, K8s mostly functions as a batteries-not-included wrapper around the underlying cloud provider services and APIs.
Which batteries are not included? The "wrapper around the underlying cloud provider services and APIs" is enormously important. Why would you prefer to use a less well-designed, more vendor-specific set of APIs?
I seriously don't get these criticisms of k8s. K8s abstracts away, and standardizes, an enormous amount of system complexity. The people who object to it just don't have the requirements where it starts making sense, that's all.
> K8s is well suited to dynamically scaling a SaaS product delivered over the web
It’s well suited to other things as well, people are just in denial about some of them.
“I need to run more than two containers and have a googleable way to manage their behavior” is a very common need.