I am a Linux user, but I don’t really know how most things work, even after years of casual use on my Main, I just started getting into Devuan and wondered then, what exacly does systemd do that most distros have it? What even is init freedom? And why should I care?
I was with you until the last paragraph. Just about every init system is different from historical init systems. Do you really think OpenRC or runit or any of the other init systems people are using have any similarity to SysV init? I think you’re attacking a strawman in the last paragraph. (Edit: Except Slackware users. Slackware still does init the way it’s traditionally been done, but I can’t think of anyone else who does)
Yes? OpenRC is certainly much closer to sysvinit than systemd and in many ways just expands upon it.