I've been thinking about that. I think the new "pipe" is filesystems instead of text. That's how I've been using Docker volumes in GitLab CI/CD the last couple of years.

EDIT: The alternative is PowerShell. You carry objects over the pipe instead of text. I don't like PS personally.

The whole all but violent upheaval caused by systemd (not rehashing it here/now) seems to stem from the Unix philosophy not being adhered to. Pulseaudio similarly used to draw a lot of ire (perhaps still does; I haven't seen as much of it lately).

Personally I love the Unix philosophy for most things because of how easy it makes automating a lot of things, but there are realities to crafting a modern graphical desktop system that can at times be incompatible with it. Sometimes a front end for a text based tool makes sense and things can be adhered to; sometimes not so much. Personally at LEAST including an API is my design preference, but, well, sometimes you work with the software you get.