I've fixed too many linux-isms in code manually over the years, pkg/ports does what it should but since *nix tradition relies on hardcoded paths I often wanted out-of-tree builds for various software.

And that's the thing, as I grow older I feel more and more that I just want the parts of computing that I don't want to _care_ about to be stupid simple.

If I'm doing a program needing a recent version of some language that doesn't have a FreeBSD port yet and some database behind it, I don't really want to configure it all manually because I don't particularly care for porting the runtime or managing the database (that isn't exposed to the outside world anyhow).

This is stuff where I don't want a large CI pipe or other management (or needing to remember to upgrade the packages if I upgrade the hosting OS).

Stuff like this is why "the clouds are winning", friction should be linear depending on the effort I want to put into managing something.

But going for real HW or even VPS a places an "upgrade tax" on me because I can't just let non-public services like an isolated DB just ride-along over major versions (maybe Jails with isolated userlands could be an option, but that becomes painful instead when needing newer versions of the application behind the veil).