I think that one of the reasons many people might not be aware of the VM is because -- in my experience -- Docker Desktop works almost identically to Docker on a real Linux system. I feel like Docker has done a fantastic job at making you feel like it's running natively (i.e. despite running in a VM you can mount volumes close to the same way, you can use the docker CLI from the host, etc.). Additionally, I don't think people realize/care that Linux containers rely heavily on features the Linux kernel provides (interestingly, and less well-known, Microsoft has done a lot of work to provide Windows containers[0], too).

I am curious, though, why in your use-case of Tailscale and Traefik knowing that Docker Desktop runs in a VM would impact anything from a functional standpoint? I.E. why would the VM have even been an important factor to the support teams you reached out to?

> This industry is just a bunch of overly paid amateurs

I think, perhaps a more compassionate view is that everyone is learning and growing and it's difficult to be an expert at literally everything you use in your stack. :)

[0] https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/virtualization/windowscont...