SCMs are just what I had been looking for ever since I took up Linux.
The idea of self-contained applications, which is already popular in Windows (portable applications) and in Mac OS X (application directories) is something that we really, really needed in Linux. Thanks Robert, Jason and the team!
I am fully willing to pay the price of additional memory use for a self-contained application, for a simple reason: I want to be sure that all the dependencies of my application are always in apple pie order, safe within a protected boundary. No system update should be able to mess with my dependencies and to make my application unusable!
It's like living in a fortress, if you like.
The peace of mind that one gets from such a safe system will definitely outweight the downsides!!
Long live SCMs!