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A counter point would be to look at the Python ecosystem. They have many fewer libraries but the ones they have are very well maintained and widely adopted.So what? It is what it is - the python ecosystem faces completely different challenges than the JS ecosystem, if the browsers exclusively ran Python instead of JS it would be the exact same situation for Python.
> JS/Node is full of unmaintained projects that people inevitably need to migrate away from
This isn't true. jQuery, Angular.js, Angular, React, Vue etc are all still maintained (check their githubs if you are in doubt) and all still work just fine, so if you want to use the same tooling you did a decade ago that's totally possible.
> it’s always going to be harder to build on top of old rather than to write something new
So what? If you want to contribute to old projects instead of writing something new you're free to do that, and if you don't like new stuff you don't have to use it, complaining about this stuff is just pointless contrarianism, but of course, you're free to do that too.