Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The default and de facto standard should be something that doesn’t get put on a pedestal but stays out of the way. The problem is that in the python ecosystem there really isn't a default de facto standard yet at all. It's supposed to be pip, but enough people dislike pip that it's hard as a newcomer to know if it's actually the standard or not. The nice thing about putting something like this on a pedestal is that…
It feels even more standard than it used to, with python -m pip and python -m venv making it so it can be used with a virtalenv even if only python or python3 is in your path.
Npm is a pretty good example of what pip should be. Npm has had to compete with other package managers for a long time but has remained the standard simply because it actually has all the basic features that people expect out of a package manager. So other package managers can spin up using the npm registry providing slightly better experiences in certain ways, but npm covers the basics.
Pip really does not even cover the basics, hence the perpetual search for a better default.