Sure, but I’m pretty sure you still need root to access the Docker daemon. And if you don’t need root, like if you add your account to the Docker group, then your account is essentially always root (since having access to the Docker daemon let’s you do anything).

Podman is just an app. It’s like Vim or ffmpeg. Imagine if Vim ran as a root daemon at all times and you ran sudo to connect to it and edit text files in your home directory. That’s how silly the Docker architecture is.