Ironically the success of unix/linux is that it is a very effective and uniform abstraction to accessing network, compute, storage and memory resources.

The big win of kubernetes is not that it lets you get access to computational resources easier (yaml rather than systemd scripts) but that it is a temporary escape on the "file a ticket to get new compute resources" (temporary because just like picking up hardware for the data center goes from just buy it to get it approved; VM creation goes from just click a button to what's your cost center and VP signoff; new namespace creation hasn't had time to get put into service now, but it will be). Like Docker let developers bypass restrictive OS imaging, k8s lets developers spin up more resources with less constraint. It's not really about the technical abstractions, running a go binary on bare metal is not different (only faster) than running it in a k8s cluster except I have no way to get permission to run it on bare metal.

And my skills are shifting from "maximizing the product value delivered by this heap of hardware" to "minimizing the cost of the MVP in this cloud billing environment." Before if we had unused compute, we'd stick a cache in or precompute something that will reduce latency for customers down the line. Now, we are like, don't do that computation, it mightn't be needed.

... and my skills are getting used to fix the issues that folks dont understand when these layers break

Keep building those layers... thats job security

And strace and tcpdump (and now perf and friends) can still fix almost any problem with access to the source and enough thought.

add sysdig to your tool box

I don't really see any value in automation of creating k8s clusters.

From my point of view 80-90% of software people doesn't need k8s really.

There is strong trend to have "low code-no code" at some point we want abstraction of CI/CD and having small apps that can be built by specialists without need for developers. With k8s managed by cloud vendors we are in the middle of "no infra", cloud vendors will be managing k8s clusters but it is not going to be that everyone wants to spin up his own cluster. There is not enough market for higher infra abstraction, there is enough market for level where we are at.

Whatever we do, please do not solve the actual root issue under any circumstances. That will not do. We need to stick another layer on top of the pile so we can have conferences and hashtags about it.

Maybe what is needed is what zfs did to raid. A freaking layering violation that breaks old assumptions and puts pieces together in better ways.