> Platform package managers like maven have been far more successful because they provide a much better user experience, and frankly I suspect this is if anything because they're so thoroughly isolated from the platform package manager.

This is just wrong. Package managements support simple models by design so you don't end up with a mess of conflicting and potentially insecure dependencies in deployment environments.

Use maven in your build pipeline, fine, but distribute a minimal package using tarball/RPM/APT/etc. so that only the minimal runtime dependencies install on the deployment target. In fact, I built my first RPM using the maven rpm plugin. It takes just minutes to set up and use.