Earlier quoted context omitted.
It makes it easy to distribute tools and libraries. There are security concerns but for something like this, it seems like a fine distribution method. No one is stopping you from just cloning the repo if you don't want to use npm though.
The community/npm encourages things like the `isEven`, etc bullshit. A whole package, to do `foo % 2 === 0` ?? Oh but then it has a dependency on ANOTHER package which just checks if a variable is a number. Oh and then there's the isOdd, which is an entire package.. to do `! isEven`... ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?
I don't know anyone who writes professional level code that uses packages like that. Sure, they exist. I'm sure you could find other simple, funny packages across other ecosystems. Yes, the micro-packages can be too granular but that's no fault of the author nor the creators of npm. It's the result of people doing stupid stuff just like people have for decades before. The difference is that these micro-packages are more visible on npm and everyone wants their chance to say "yup, I wrote that module."