Like numerous linux users I have sometimes lamented coming to terms with systemd. My belief is that it's a well-written collection of software which is somewhat over-engineered. It fills a need, sure, though I've managed to live and work without it for a long time (been using linux since 1994). And who am I to question Torvalds and Co. on the subject of its suitability for linux and the data center?
So the other day I was on a recently-built Amazon AWS EC2 instance, running one of the AWS-branded linux AMIs, fixing things in /etc/init.d. Thinking about how AWS might rule the world someday, since they already hold about 35-40% of the public cloud (
http://www.geekwire.com/2017/cloud-report-card-amazon-web-services-12b-juggernaut-microsoft-google-gaining/). Then I had one of those "Duh!" moments: There must be on-the-order-of a million of linux instances on the planet which are _not_ running systemd, as AWS's own linux AMIs do not by default.
It seems to me that this data point has been completely ignored in the years-long discussions about systemd's merits, flaws and suitability.