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I think companies don't set up local caches. So all those million downloads could just be a few companies running tests on every commit.

I think GitHub stars tell much more about the popularity. NPM download count prefers dependencies like lodash.

90% of my github stars are projects which I skimmed over and thought looked cool and I might download one day.

Ditto. I use them to (hopefully) send good vibes the the creator / maintainer - you never know, they may need the tiny endorphin hit!

Which means it is a project you should some basic level of interest in. A download might be a dependency of a dependency of a dependency you don't really care about and actually would like to get rid of ...

Indeed. "13% as popular as React". Sheesh.

It might just be a humblebrag

Well, I didn't know about Helmet.js, but I've seen React mentioned many times on HN.