The package decade

A dependency became free to add and expensive to audit

npm launched in 2010 and made installing someone else's code a single command. The cost moved from adding it to knowing what you had added.

A text file turned into a pipeline

Bundlers made the build step mandatory for ordinary front-end work, which put a toolchain between the source and what the browser receives.

The browser learned modules and the build step shrank

Native ES modules let development servers skip bundling entirely, which reversed a decade of the toolchain getting heavier.