I personally can not stand when an app comes with it's own entire surrounding operating system. I already have an operating system whose very job is to provide a standardized environment for processes to run in. I don't want 50 OS's where I used to have 50 processes. I can't stand AppImage, snaps, flatpack, docker images, etc for mere local desktop apps.

It's fine to serve as a reference, and for reproducible builds, and for appliances like a mail server. But I never opt to run an app that way even just to try it out, and I especially can not stand when an app developer only offers that as the only way they distribute an app (there are some, and not open source so you really have no choice). This prioritizes the developers convenience over the users. If it's their right to do so, then it must be exactly equally my right to say I don't like that and try to avoid using their apps.

Full agreement here. Drives me nuts when I see a Docker image for something that should be a simple zip file and some basic deploy or build instructions, but I can see why people prefer it.

This also depends on what kind of software or if it's a hobby vs work related.

I usually do the opposite, even if there's a docker image available, to try it out I follow the build and manual setup. I need to know _how_ it works even if at the end I use the image. If something breaks, I own this and need to be able to debug it. Depending on the program and its architecture, I also need to know how to scale it.