The vast majority of ARM SoCs' Linux support amounts to Linux forks, and not mainline Linux support. Forks eventually stop being maintained, and quickly become outdated.
Now that I look at it, it looks like this is the case for some[1] ARM Chromebooks, too, in that they are stuck having to use the specific ChromeOS kernels that ship with images for their Chromebook models.
Some of the earliest ARM laptops ran Chrome OS, which is an image based Linux distro (vs package based).
People have been running more recognizable distros on some of these models for a long time, with varying degrees of success.
Take it easy on the hyperbole. There are definitely options.