I think it's more because Conda has explicitly positioned itself for a specific domain (scientific Python) and because Linux distributions aren't operating at the same level of specificity. The success of uv has demonstrated that Python packaging tools don't need PSF or PyPA affiliation to be extremely popular; they just have to be good.
But this final claim is essentially right: PSF can suggest things, and the community will (to some extent) accept those suggestions as blessed. But this doesn't mean that the PSF can dictate what would essentially be a significant breaking change to pip's behavior.
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I think it's more because Conda has explicitly positioned itself for a specific domain (scientific Python) and because Linux distributions aren't operating at the same level of specificity. The success of uv has demonstrated that Python packaging tools don't need PSF or PyPA affiliation to be extremely popular; they just have to be good.
But this final claim is essentially right: PSF can suggest things, and the community will (to some extent) accept those suggestions as blessed. But this doesn't mean that the PSF can dictate what would essentially be a significant breaking change to pip's behavior.