I am currently using Linux Mint (after a long stint of using MX Linux) after learning it handles Nvidia graphics cards flawlessly, which I am grateful for. Whatever grief I have given Ubuntu in the past, I take it back because when they make something work, it is solid.
Anyways, like most distros these days, Flatpaks show up alongside native packages in the package manager / app store. I used to have a bias towards getting the natively packed version, but these days, I am choosing Flatpaks, precisely because I know they will be the latest version.
This includes Blender, Cura, Prusaslicer, and just now QBittorrent. I know this is probably dumb, but I choose the version based on which has the nicer icon.
I maintain a few apps that are included into some distributions with no participation from my side apart from tagging what I consider releases in my git repo. How is doing something only once is more attractive as not doing it at all?
Because you can make sure it was done right. You don’t have to worry about bugs or other issues being the result of faulty packaging if you’re the one doing the packaging. Plus It makes reproducing bugs easier when everyone’s using the same package, and declaring the flatpak as the official package makes it much more likely that people will use the flatpak.