You're implying that I have to run a local Pypi just to update some dependencies for a project? When other languages somehow manage without that? No way I'm doing that.

Some organizations force you to use their internal dependency repos because the "IT department" or similar has blessed only certain versions in the name of "security" (or at least security theater.)

Inevitably, these versions are out-of-date. Sometimes, they are very, very out of date. "Sorry, I can only install [version from 5 years ago.]" is always great for productivity.

I ran into this recently with a third-party. You'd think a 5 year old version would trigger alarm bells...

This is the norm at all big tech companies now AFAIK.

I use 30 year old software regularly. Newer doesn't mean working.

Sure. I do a lot of retrocomputing and that's fine. I have OSes from the 80's running in emulators.

But when you're developing software, you want the newer stuff. Would you use MySQL 5.0 from 2005? No, you'd be out of your mind.