So he creates a program that was good enough that pretty much everyone started using it.

And he complained about a lot of dependencies but then went and actually wrote fixes/solutions for them that was so good that nearly everyone started using and even depending on it.

It sounds like the people who were sitting on the sidelines complaining about his complaining had ample opportunities to write better alternatives than the programs he wrote but didn’t do so. Instead they relied on character attacks and FUD (well, except the folks who developed pipewire), while Poettering wa engage in elite hacking by implementing solutions and letting users and distro makers decide whether they wanted to use those solutions.

I don’t see how Poettering is the villain here.