Modules were certainly the biggest upgrade barrier ever in the history of java. But the have enabled a way for the JDK to get smaller without them we would fac

Modules were certainly the biggest upgrade barrier ever in the history of java. But the have enabled a way for the JDK to get smaller without them we would face the JDK getting bigger with each release, which is not sustainable. So on reflection I think it was a good move. Most frameworks and libraries work on modules now.