I think a big part of the reason people are pissed at it is because it really isn't just an init system. Poettering himself even admits that. So it's not just that people are finding themselves forced to use one particular flavor of something, they're being forced to abandon simple inits for an entire subsystem.

So it's really no wonder that it has generated so much hate. I mean even when comparing different pieces of the same type of software you have enough hatred online to warrant the nick name "holy wars", and that's still when people have a complete choice to use whichever one they want.
So now imagine telling all those people that not only do they have to switch software and they have no choice about it at all, but it's also a totally different _type_ of software too AND on top of all that the developers are widely considered to be some of the most toxic in the whole community and you have the perfect recipe for a holy war x100.

That being said though, I really don't trust the developers. One big complaint against them is they tend to not give a shit about the community as a whole and are really only interested in supporting gnome. Everyone else can fuck off as far as they're concerned. I don't think anyone like that should be developing something that's going to be such a vital part of our systems.
I also don't trust the _way_ they're building this new subsystem. They claim it's not monolithic by technicality, but practically speaking it might as well be when even kernel developers are claiming that it's too complicated to understand.

And last but not least, I just gotta say that although I don't have any real evidence to back this up the whole thing really just raises tons of red flags for me as a kind of scam to gain Redhat more influence in the GNU/Linux world and nothing more.
It just smells bad through and through. I would happily use a similar alternative just to be dependent on a different set of developers.

its fine to 'not mind using it', theres more of a philisohical and design argument to be had if you'd LIKE to use it. but, opposing it without really understanding why beyond 'leet people told me so' is probably just as bad even if on the right side.

I cant think of even one situation in my use of linux in which any init system has been an important necessary part of my computing. They're just sort of there.
before Id used any system without an 'init system' ala systemd openrc sysv whatever, I just sort of assumed it was some kind of Vital System Component tm that was necessary, obviously
but no, just starting the shit you want with &, and at most putting its pid in a file somewhere, its fine. Ive had no problems. if, as it is clearly not, this isn't even a requirement at all, so even if I did find it helpful for something why should it be this gigantic million LOC abomination that does everything in this super special unique way? this is just stupid. think of all the hours of human thought wasted on those hundreds of thousands of lines of code just to start some programs in the background. software is really an intellectual black hole. we'd be on mars by now if not for computers, even accounting for what progress not having them would mean losing.
just start the stuff you want. if you really need to "manage" it, thats still just a means to start things.
I hear the reason that its easier than writing scripts but that just makes me think you were writing grossly overcomplicated scripts with every stupid convention and tooling and whatever else someone ever told you you DEFINITELY NEED in them. Just start the shit you want to be running.
I use the init system my distro comes with when I use linux, and I dont mind it, because I just use it to do what I need from linux and its what it comes with. If it came with systemd I wouldnt mind either in the same sense, until it overwrote efivars an dbricked my system of course. but its bad design.

>3
That was a very astute and helpful comment that provided me a new perspective on the whole matter! As far as systemd goes, your response + reading up on the whole matter leads me to avoid systemd. The developers act like children and as you said it seems like a Redshat scam. I'm a novice to linux but i'd like to switch from manjaro to a more simpilar distro like Alpine or maybe even Gentoo (if im tuff enough) to avoid systemd all together. I just want to understand everything a bit more before I try a whole new install. ;-;

>>4
Any of the major BSDs can be a good choice, depending on what you want. And inherently, by not using the Linux kernel, they don't have systemd.

>>5
I never said it was a redhat scam, though, so im guessing you meant to reply to >>2 .
Even so, you learn eventually that linux is linux. Even more broadly, unix is UNIX is Unix, though linux gives you easier access to the 'outside world'. Dont worry too much. its not as obvious when you look at all the stuff people throw on top of a linux kernel and ship, but its still so.