> The alternative is the npm hellscape where you have a package for "isOdd" and a package for "is even" that can break the entire ecosystem if the owner is disgruntled because everything depends on them.
This used to be true 5-10 years ago. The js ecosystem moves fast and much has been done to fix the dependency sprawl.
Ironically, most of the dependencies are actually Rust crates used by swc and turbopack [1][2]. Try running `cargo tree` on either of those crates, it's enlightening to say the least. And of course, Node has a built in file watcher, and even the most popular third party package for file watching (Chokidar) has a single dependency [3].
