http://qz.com/646467/how-one-programmer-broke-the-internet-b... is a good starting point.

I sincerely thought everyone heard of this.

Except this had nothing to do with using a VCS system for package distribution, and everything to do with indirection provided by the index.

Let's invert the question: why do you think VCSs are a good idea for package management?

I'd rather you answered the question instead of dodging it. However here are a few off the top of my head, I'm sure there are many more reasons for it and reasons against, but that is why I asked in the first place.

- There are several popular, well maintained, hosted VCS providers, such as GitHub, who have good bandwidth, and host open-source projects for free. Nice as most open-source projects are unfunded. - A VCS gives you traceability in what's changing in your package repository 'for free' - nice when you open it up to contributors. - A git-based package repository can be kept locally in relatively little space, allowing for the case where the package repo host goes down - I've had issues with being unable to install from PyPI in the past because it's down, I have not had that issue with git-based repositories, for example (not a perfect comparison). - A VCS based repository can aid in creating a system where a given state of the repo is consistent, and works together, and can be upgraded atomically. Stackage is doing something like this, providing a known working set of packages at any given release (although I'm not sure if they are backing that concept with a VCS).