[pidgeon_lover]

Central repositories and package managers are the reason I avoid Linux - I like to keep offline backups of old software. This is extremely difficult on Linux and you have to trust the package managers to keep your software available. I do not trust them to do so, and have faced countless issues at work with package deprecation on industrial Linux boxes. I end up having to manually search for and archive a million DEBs, which I can then manually install, and it ends up just being a very messy and time consuming way of approximating a fraction of Windows/Mac/Android's power.

[int_19h]

Storage and bandwidth are cheap enough these days that you can easily archive the official repo in its entirety (using something like apt-mirror).

[darkwater]

If you are so worried by that you can setup a private repository. It's just a glorified HTTP server...

[tombert]

I've debated trying to run my own Nixpkgs just because I think it would be fun, but I've talked myself out of it because I'm afraid that maintaining it would become a full time job.