server-side sharded watch is Kubernetes admitting the control plane has a data-scale problem

Kubernetes scalability conversations usually start with the obvious stuff. How many nodes? How many pods? How large is the cluster? How much etcd pain can one organization spiritually endure before someone says “maybe we should split this thing” in a meeting and everyone pretends they were already thinking it? Fair questions. But I think Kubernetes v1.36 server-side sharded list and watch points at a quieter, more interesting problem: the control plane is becoming a data distribution system, and