To add a bit of non-Vlt (I work on the JS Platform Team at Netflix where I have driven many of our decisions in the package manager space the past 6 years) but highly involved and supportive community member:

The team that was able to ship the most important features for npm to be competitive in the modern JS stack from ~2020 was able to take a fresh look at the problem without the organizational baggage of Github/Microsoft.

On the technical side, the ecosystem is maturing and we need a better set of foundational tools to meet that maturity level. This includes deep commitment to performance, security, and DX. The full product is more than just a package manager, it is a registry, a registry client, a task runner, and much more. Vlt is aiming to be this mature foundation.

Feel free to correct me if I am wrong on anything here Darcy.

P.S. grumble grumble...jFrog is a trash fire....grumble grumble