Ask HN: Have 115387 weekly NPM installs, but only 781 stargazers. Why?

I can only talk for myself, but I wouldn't be surprised if others would be similar.

I don't use star as a reward for the developer, but rather as a bookmark.

I star a repository in case I have to do something with the code (or repository) itself: when I modify the code (either to scratch my own itch with a bugfix/missing feature, or to also upstream it), when I need to check the code itself for something, or when I create issues, either to ask for help due to missing documentation, or report a bug. (+1: neodrama repo is also starred, as it brings the nasty-tasty dev dramas. But it's more like a blog, in repo form)

In case a software just works as it should, and I don't have to mess with the code deeply, then I don't star - I see no reason to do so.

Stars are more like bookmarks, even GitHub, or rather Microsoft, has acknowledged this because they gave us personal categories to group them under. I don't use them, I suspect they want to glean more insights from my behavior

Regarding downloads, I would bet some CI systems / builds are the primary source. These don't really count as installations of it's just tests running in CI, imho anyway