Paul Krill @ InfoWorld reports npm disputes the rumors of the public registry's demise. https://www.infoworld.com/article/3412143/npm-free-public-ja...

If it's true that they want to kill the public registry, that means I may need to seriously investigate Entropic as an alternative. I almost feel like migrating away from the normal registry is an ethical issue now. What percentage of popular packages are available in Entropic? If someone else's repo is not in there, can I add it for them?

The github registry may be another reasonable alternative... not to mention linking git hashes directly, but that has other issues.

How is a package manager for open source packages supposed to be profitable? This seems like a big risk for NPM Inc considering other languages, PyPi, CRAN, CPAN, don’t have VC-backed startups running their sites and they seem to be fine.

They sell into large companies with an enterprise support contract and some additional features. A lot of companies want to run their own registries for private modules & such. Pretty much the same market/business model as other similar tools (particularly Java-oriented) like Nexus & Artifactory.