Seems like sour grapes from the author of another initialization subsystem (mdev). His argument would seem to apply to any effort to standardize initialization on Linux.
No higher power decreed "systemd or death" and forced it on the distros. They've adopted it on its merits, and most have retained the ability to run other init systems if the user wishes.
This is a pinnacle of the Linux ecosystem, not a blemish on its record: the larger community is working towards better interoperability between distros.