Now I've definitely seen customized distributions of python from package managers that have taken steps to prevent you from using pip. IIRC, the python you get from `apt-get install python` in Debian does this? I.e., it's designed to support system utilities, not as a user's general purpose python environment, and they want `apt-get` to control this environment, not pip. So they've removed pip and ensure_pip and easy_install from your core system python environment.

TLDR: In my experience, that requirement doesn't come from pip, it's your distro taking steps to prevent https://xkcd.com/1987/