That's the thing. Not every package is available on every distribution.
Snap/Flatpak were meant to solve that issue.
Edit: There's also the fact that practically most packages on Ubuntu or Debian, for example, are outdated.
Snap/Flatpak were meant to solve that issue.
Edit: There's also the fact that practically most packages on Ubuntu or Debian, for example, are outdated.
And they do? Just because they have some flaws doesn't mean that they're completely unusable. If you need an app that isn't on your distro but is on Flatpak, by all means use it.
Some reasonable level of quality control does take time. There are distros that are much more up to date with upstream versions (Arch Linux, Gentoo, etc), but by living on the bleeding edge, you will eventually get cut.
This "issue" was already solved by static executables. Snap and flatpack are the work of computer illiterates.
What I value most is having every software or library available through some form of package manager. Downloading static binaries off the internet without auto-update just doesn't make it which is why I like having Flatpak as a fallback.
It also makes it easier for the common user to have every piece of software available through one store. They don't need to know whether it's a .deb or a Flatpak underneath, it just needs to be there and work reasonably well.
There's really no other option: either distro maintainers include every single piece of software in the repositories (unlikely), or we need a common format that works on all distros (already the case with Flatpak).
On the maintainer/author side, yes, I think static binaries largely perform the same.