It doesn’t as long as other init systems exist

Of course, which is why I said it was “somewhat” central earlier in the thread: it’s not universal, even if systemd is widely used.

Other init systems generally also have ways to store data (not specifically dates, just in general), and some overarching standard for securely accessing them would be useful for intercompatibility, but that’s a mess as it stands anyway.

people can luckily choose, hopefully that will always be the case.

Also agreed. Just because I personally come down on the systemd side of the debate doesn’t mean everyone should have to use it. Standards are nice, but there always should be alternatives, in case a standard gets captured by twats (which kinda is the debate we’re having: whether systemd has started bowing to fascists significantly enough to warrant migrating away).