[nicce]

> PulseAudio has, deservedly or otherwise, been the face of audio issues in desktop Linux for coming on two decades now

It is actually very hard to say in reality whether some other product would have been better.

The more users software has, more issues there will be. If there is ”de facto” way to play audio, all conversation focues on this ”de facto” way. It has been also kinda first of its kind in this scale. PipeWire might work well now, but they had excellent example what to not do or how to do otherwise.