This also has the opposite effect - if there is any old or outdated component or piece of software that you still need to be running for unfortunate reasons, there's always the possibility of putting it in a container with all of the packages and other environment configuration that it requires.

That way you don't have to risk compromising the entire system and don't even have to run VMs with old OS releases, while at the same time only need to expose the ports that the software uses, if even those at all. In my eyes, access to devices and such could still use a few improvements in Docker and other competing container runtimes, but for the most part, the technology is a lifesaver!

While i do think that it's nice if the same packages are also available outside of containers, for the OS of your choice, which i'm sure will also be the case for latest versions of PHP and other software, even if done by a third party shortly after Debian's new release, that's sadly not always the case. In those situations, containers indeed seem like a good choice.