I'm not sure how I missed that npm was acquired by GitHub, but man, a lot of stuff suddenly makes a lot of sense. I really can't think of a worse home for such a critical part of the Node ecosystem.
As someone who used npm since at least 2014, it was already fucked before Microsoft (who owns GitHub) got there to make things worse. That's why yarn and pnpm and bun and a few lesser knowns exist.
I don't think Microsoft is trying to extend and extinguish javascript or typescript. I do, however, think they are using their standard anticompetitive playbook to disadvantage IDEs that aren't VS Code and agents that aren't Copilot.
For example, it requires some hackery to use your Copilot subscription via the Copilot extension in VSCodium (the f/oss distribution).
They want the default to be writing javascript (where the default is npm), written in VS Code, publishing to GitHub. You can already see NPC devs mindlessly following this pattern.
The response is to refuse to use Microsoft software. Use a Mac, don't use Excel or Word, don't use VS Code. I've also pulled my repos from GitHub and won't publish there or on npm. Their ecosystem makes the world worse, even before you factor in the fact that they happily provide services to ICE to aid them in running concentration camps.
It can however run actual FOSS alternatives of these. It's a bit weird when you want to avoid MS software due to their bad business practices but are OK with Adobe.
https://github.blog/news-insights/company-news/npm-is-joinin...