The faults aren't so much with the actual NPM software as with the whole ecosystem. The real root of the problem IMO is that Javascript has such a tiny std lib compared to other popular languages that have package management systems. This encourages lots of people who are missing various functions normally found in std libs to write packages implementing various combinations of those functions. Those who are writing larger packages then depend on various combinations of those little helper packages. So of course, if you need to use multiple large packages to do something useful, they'll tend to pull in a huge forest of tiny packages in a bunch of versions.

NPM itself was also not great, but did become great in the last majors. The weakness of the stdlib is still a problem but very, very slowly getting better with the new Ecmascript and node.js versions.

Hit the nail on the head.

left-pad am-i-right?

It clearly has its faults, but it is simple to use, requires no “venvs”, is CI-friendly and mostly does what it’s supposed to with few surprises.

Much unlike how things work with python.

And it comes from a time, where a 2MB-webpage is considered acceptable. The whole idea of venvs is basically still considering some reuse. If you shout out loud "SCREW YOU LIBRARY REUSE", then npm is perfect of course...

It is, at least on HN, but it is also one of the best overall.

Yes, but for opposite reasons. You probably don't get left-pad in an ecosystem without one — and preferably only one —obvious way to publish and use it.