I think Flatpak won't end up solving the problem though. Mainly because it still requires distributions to exist and provide system updates, but also because it just makes the static binary problem (that distributions were made to fix) even worse.

Honestly what I think we need is to have containers that actually overlay on the host system and only include whatever specialised stuff they need on top of the host. So updates to the host do propagate into containers -- and for bonus points the container metadata can still be understood by the host.

In the end i don't see it as a technical problem, but a mentality problem.

Again and again we see that without any financial incentive, developers are loath to put any effort into backwards compatibility and interface stability.

At the same time they all want people to be running their latest and shiniest.

So in the end, what will happen is that each "app" will bundle the world, or at least as much as they feel they need to.