> why do so many distros default to systemd?

Because it solves real problems: https://0pointer.de/blog/projects/why.html

I started scrolling through that and came across a chart that has "interfacing via d-bus" as a green feature instead of a red bug at the very top of the list and I'm having a hard time taking it seriously. And I liked the shell scripts that Linux classically had been using: it meant I could read and trace what was happening. I dunno... if you have "modular C" as a feature and "shell scripts" as a bug you probably have made up a bunch of "problems" the same way people who would always whine about their languages and frameworks not being "modern" often do :/.

In reality the shell scripts used in the previous generation of init systems were difficult to follow. I agree that dbus is perhaps heavy weight, but it does provide an API. You can run systemd without it.

UNIX philosophy is just a book quote that never was uphold in practice in big iron UNIX, even though it gets repeated all the time in FOSS circles.

As for systemd hate, again, most big iron UNIX have introduced similar infrastructure way before systemd came to be.

OS X has launchd, Solaris and its descendants have SMF, for example.

Many, many distros are directly derivative of a ''parent'' distro like Debian. If the parent distro sneezes, almost all of those derivative distros do likewise.