I’m just guessing, but it might be easier to programmatically install a systemd cron job (and making sure it runs) than doing so for the old/conventional crond?
You could say the same thing about Ansible, or Chef or Puppet or any of the other millions of systems automation tools available. There are lots of ways to misuse software, I don't think that that should preclude people from writing it.
I'm quite precise about about what these tools can and cannot do on my systems. Downloading random files form the Internet isn't on the list. When you hand over the control of the hosts file to someone else, you're basically transfer control of your DNS queries.
