Lockfiles don't fix a fundamentally broken dev ecosystem. Users of left-pad fell into one of two categories: people who don't understand the most basic programming tasks, and people who do understand these tasks but are so apprehensive about their own ability that they pull in random libs without even glancing at the source (a single glance would have informed them that they didn't need it). These are both signs of inexperienced programmers.

Amateurishness is normal to some extent, but JS has the ecosystem where beginner mistakes are often seen as the right way to do things.