It does not make a difference whether the language is bad or the tool is bad because if in this case npm is a de facto tool for the ecosystem you will have to use it. Same with java: it is not the language which is problematic but the "enterprise" projects which need all kinds of factories/builders/etc which make development incredibly slow.

Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't get the memo that says if you work in Javascript you have to use npm. Did that become mandatory in ES2015 or ES2016?

But again, you are blaming the tool for the bad things people do with the tool.

Are you using npm? How many js developers use it around you? 90%? 95%? As I said in my previous comment it does not make difference in the end whether the tool is bad or the language. If I have to use that tool to leverage the good parts of the ecosystem (eg. use all the libraries in nmp) I can either choose not to use it and lose the the advantages of it or choose to use it and have a crap software which is in the hands of a private company and who can take over my packages (even which I have published years ago) without question.

Yes, I use npm every day. So what? You are still blaming the tool for the bad things people are doing with it.

As for the taking over packages problem, that's an easy thing to prevent. You can use the tools from npm without allowing that private company from messing you up. Download and use them locally.