> An extra abstraction layer like k8s makes it a lot easier, which is exciting. It's also precisely why IBM bought Red Hat - a well-built k8s distribution like OpenShift is one of the very few real alternative to public clouds for many companies.

OpenShift is built on a prescriptive mentality. They choose everything for you from OS through pipeline and many deviations are unsupported. As you mentioned there are others, but depending on your environment OpenShift is either a very good fit or square-peg-round-hole.