I didn't think it looked like an L at all, because I was thinking "cursive". Connecting all the letters together for efficiency is the point of cursive.
"It deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe."
I disagree. I think anyone who's worked with either will recognize i18n or k8s. They're unambiguous, memorable, and search well. That's more than can be said about most acronyms. The alternative for single words is to use just part of the word (like intrn or kube) and I think those are less memorable and more ambiguous.
I mean, Kubernetes is a really stupid name for what it is, but I guess Docker was already taken. I'm going to make my own containerizing system and call it deghwI', which is "helmsman" in Klingon.