Oh no. The benefit of Linux is to be able to build your own Setup (Server,Desktop). Now with this "Solution" the user have more and more a closed System where every change creates a lot unnecessary steps to install another software.
I agree that on servers the container runtime makes a lot of sense but not on Desktops where changes happen every day.
You'll always be able to roll your own. What this is about is like running a live distro w/ "persistence", except from your own hard drive instead of external media. With comparable benefits and drawbacks, I assume - in fact some of the drawbacks of live distros could be avoided, since you could have an "initial setup" (adding users, hardware detection, basic config etc.) the results of which are persisted.
Well even tails allows to install some packages after when you run it from USB.
"You'll always be able to roll your own." of course I can also build my own linux with LFS (=Linux from Scratch) but how many People do this? But you are right, to use Silverblue or not can decide every person on there own.
I agree, and I whish others could see this as what it is - a push to make everything so overcomplicated and repository-locked in the name of security that you need endless maintenance and a support contract to run even basic software on your PC, thereby taking F/OSS ad absurdum. When in reality we haven't seen significant end-user F/OSS in almost a decade.
Well the question is will the enterprise Software Vendor like Citrix, IBM, Dell, HP and so on port there Software to this new Package format. Even for today it's difficult to run some SW/HW tools on "Linux" as the vendors support only a small amount of Linux distribution with specific versions.
I agree that on servers the container runtime makes a lot of sense but not on Desktops where changes happen every day.