Today, Kubernetes is often seen as a standalone and (loosely speaking) self-sufficient piece of software. Yes, to use it in production, you’ll need to integrate various cloud-native tools like CNI, service meshes, and others. But Kubernetes is still commonly perceived as an application — some even call it the “OS for the cloud.”

In my view, this understanding of Kubernetes is leading the industry into a dead end.

To remain a successful product K8s is needed to be viewed as akin to the Linux Kernel.