(When I was investigating this it was very early in Node’s `--import` story, but there were several edge cases with the more common ESM-to-CJS approaches that I wanted to address. Most were probably exceedingly niche concerns, but I’d expect top-level await to affect a meaningful subset of users.)

The other pieces of the toolkit could absolutely be used: package manager, script runner, package runner. Works with anything that implements the Node module resolution algorithm (actually Yarn PnP also works out of the box...).

  FROM node:26-slim
  RUN npm i -g @nubjs/nub

[0] https://nodejs.org/api/module.html#moduleregisterhooksoption...

Simple example: Node is the only serious OSS software I know of that has no way to document its config (in the config file itself). It's moronic! The Node people just adopted JSON without a thought, and then refused to consider any alternatives (even "JSON with comments").

When an organization digs into bad decisions, the only way to fix them is to start something new. The entire JS ecosystem will never have documentation on its config as long as everyone keeps building on top of Node.

(And there are many other issues like this in the Node ecosystem; the utter absurdity of not being able to document config is just my personal pet peeve.)

A small scrappy team can prove out a good idea because failure is not a catastrophic risk to them. In short, forks are part of a healthy ecosystem.