It has been much more difficult in the past, as recently as 2013, there were a number of different tools competing to be the standard method of packaging python. It's pretty smooth sailing at this point.

I actually gave a lightning talk on this topic a couple months ago. Here are my slides, in case they're useful: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/13Cd-LIcw38d-zwZ5pGiW...