>I have no idea why it's not more popular for 'average' users/orgs.

Maybe because many devs use Macs / Windows? Maybe WSL may tilt the balance in LXDs favour, but on OSX? Run it a VM yourself without the conveniences of docker-compose up?

As a Linuxuser myself, i looked at the competing solutions (podman, LXD, and the one by Canonical whose name i forgot) and thought: "Ain't gonna fly in a mixed environment."

They may be technologically superior, worse is better once again i guess. Would prefer them to Docker too.