Since the introduction of nodejs and NPM, JavaScript developers have been on a ridiculous NIH-fuelled frenzy to recreate everything that ever existed, using as many dependencies (and sub-dependencies) as humanly possible to do so, while also actively choosing to not solve problems that they come across, and instead implementing ridiculous work arounds or replacing/rewriting entire components or apps, rather than working out they were missing a config option, etc.
I am not at all surprised that the nodejs/npm community's response to NPM being such a pig, is to put lipstick on that pig, and try to make it look prettier, while doing nothing about it shitting all over the couch and proceeding to lay in said shit.
To be quite frank, I am not an expert in npm's underlying architecture. But this post has inspired me to actually do some research. The fact that there is an alternate package manager shows there is a huge problem.