“You can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time”
Which other similar situations are you thinking of?
left-pad
left-pad was a very different situation. The maintainer unpublished the module from npm. I forget the reason, but I want to say it was some sort of rage quit.
he had a package called kik, which npm dropped for the benefit of kik the company (though I don't know whether they requested they do so). In response the author unpublished everything from npm.
This is mitigated if enough notice can be given in advance.