[matt_m]

This could still become a problem (if each dependency statically bundles its own dependencies) if any of the types are exposed in an API. For example say there is a Twitch and Facebook SDK that both expose a SetUserProfile(Image) function, and Image is provided by a third library (that is used by both SDKs).

If both SDKs use different versions of the Image library, the internals of the Image struct may have changed (maybe they added support for black and white images). Even though the change may be backwards compatible at a source code level, an Image struct v1.15 wouldn't work as an Image struct v1.16 unless it had the same internal private fields (and they were used in the same way).

Now, your code that loads an Image from disk can't work. It will either use v1.15 and be compatible with Twitch, or use 1.16 and be compatible with Facebook, but not both. A shared dependency works around this issue as long as the changes are backwards compatible - in this case Go would see that the minimum required version is v1.16 and both SDKs (and your code) would use that (or a newer version if you list it as a requirement).