Kubernetes isn't a scam. People don't just realize what it is, and what it brought to the world. What Kubernetes did to the world is to teach and bring Control System theory to the masses. With control system, you could run software at scale like never before. If you design your software in closed feedback loops, you can have, just like a machine, an ongoing stable system running for 7/24, that can self recover and steer itself.
People trying to use other orchestration systems, had to work and implement all of it themselves. And most of them didn't had proper primitives, so it was very brittle. With Kubernetes, you have /status, the reconciler/controller-runtime framework, requeues and CRD's. If you use all of these together, you can build a feedback loop, and apply control systems knowledge. And with Google's push, it became the winner.
There is a really nice book about it: "Designing Distributed Control Systems: A Pattern Language Approach". It's actually about machines, not software (like how to build proper big machines that can run 7/24). But if you read it, you immediately see how the patterns in the book described, are actually primitives used by Kubernetes ecosystem.