Kubernetes is complicated because it carries around Unix with it and then duplicates half the things and bolts some new ones on.

Erlang is[0] what you can get when you try to design a coherent solution to the problem from a usability and first-principles sort of idea.

But some combination of Worse is Better, Path Dependence, and randomness (hg vs git) has led us here.

[0] As far as what I've read about its design philosophy.