The absorption of udev and basically forced dependency on systemd from important desktop environment projects also controlled by RH is a very real reason why this happened.
I don't see Debian or Arch developers making that argument.
Are they hiding how much pressure from Red Hat they feel? Unlikely. Linux developers are happy to blog, tweet, and post to mailing lists about large and small things, but somehow a concerted push by a corporation makes them fall silent and accept SystemD?
It is rather that RH can throw dollars and thus coder man hours at a problem while most other distros have to make do with volunteers (or can't field the amounts RH can).
Then again, there is a certain email from Poettering thats of interest.
https://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/systemd-devel/2010-Se...
> "Google's strategy is clear. Play Services has system-level powers, but it's updatable. It's part of the Google apps package, so it's not open source. OEMs are not allowed to modify it, making it completely under Google's control. Play Services basically acts as a shim between the normal apps and the installed Android OS. Right now Play Services handles the Google Maps API, Google Account syncing, remote wipe, push messages, the Play Games back end, and many other duties. If you ever question the power of Google Play Services, try disabling it. Nearly every Google App on your device will break."