> Maybe once you learn it, yes, but it has a huge learning curve that needs to be taken into account
Agreed, but so does the alternative. You need to understand and configure software for process management, SSH, logging exfiltration, host monitoring, reverse proxying, load balancing, infrastructure as code, configuration management, DNS, service discovery, firewall rules, certificate management, etc etc. All of these software are built by different parties with different conventions and inter-compatibilities, and very often they are configured by managing configuration files (each with their own distinct format) such that the configs that pertain to a given application are distributed across your systems in dozens of configuration files (as opposed to Kubernetes where you can keep all of your application's configuration in a single manifest or directory of manifests as you prefer).
So yes, Kubernetes has a steep learning curve, but I posit that it's much less than figuring out how to cobble together your own platform by trying to identify and learn the best combinations of software from each category. With Kubernetes, you get a lot of standardization--you're on a happy path with lots of other people who are on the same path and thus benefit from an abundance of information, experience, and tooling which aren't going to be available for your bespoke system. Moreover, Kubernetes is relatively young and maturing quickly--it's getting progressively easier to work with all the time.