There would be less friction if say NPM and package managers like these weren't installing files in random places, assuming locations of files/binaries instead

There would be less friction if say NPM and package managers like these weren't installing files in random places, assuming locations of files/binaries instead of querying, let libraries and binaries be configurable, and/or not following the XDG spec. This is probably what developers should be doing, but many can't be asked to understand Ubuntu isn't the only Linux distro.