Complete failure is strong words when lots and lots of Linux boxes are running just fine.

I think the disconnect is mostly people that can't decide if they want a stable distro or a rolling release distro. Most everyone uses a stable distro because it's stable, but then the want some up-to-date software that isn't ore-built for their (crusty old) stable distro and they get annoyed. My solution was to finally give in and embrace a rolling release distro (I use arch, btw). If there isn't a package for something I want, it's not hard to build something myself because all my build tools, kernel, and libs are up to date.

Other reasons to want static linking is to distribute proprietary software with no source code available. Linux certainly does not cater to that scenario and I suppose some might call that a complete failure ¯ \ _ ( ツ ) _ / ¯

I'm mostly taken aback all the solutions devised to go around the issue, especially the container-based ones. I really disliked it when I grabbed the flatpak version of Blender only to find out that it can't have HIP support. (they might have fixed it by now but you get the point)

Linux loves to leave papercuts unfixed or undocumented for decades. The solution is to build against an older version of glibc but no one tells you that or how to do it.

Glibc has a terrible history of binary incompatibility. If that's so hard to believe, try running binaries built on one distribution on other distributions. Linux has two stable ABIs: the kernel ABI for static programs, and, ironically, WINE.