There are plenty of non-web desktop apps that also never release any features, and whose engineers use the time saved from not dealing with "npm has found 600 s

There are plenty of non-web desktop apps that also never release any features, and whose engineers use the time saved from not dealing with "npm has found 600 security vulnerabilities that you can't update" to migrate their build system from Makefiles to Bazel or whatever. It's all the same -- the human race as a whole doesn't know how to deliver features with high velocity beyond a certain scale. The proprietary desktop apps I use basically get updated every few months with what seems like about a day's worth of work for one engineer. (I use Fusion 360, which might actually be a web app in desktop clothing, Datagrip, and Simplify3D. Fusion 360 adds features and fixes bugs occasionally, but mostly each update tightens the screws on what features are available on your current payment plan. Simplify3D seems totally dead, I'd be surprised if they have any employees. Datagrip has a few updates a year, and they are things like "we fixed a bug when talking to some database you've never heard of via two tin cans connected with a piece of string". If you don't like a piece of software as it is right now, definitely never buy it. I do like all of those things, but they have definitely not discovered some sort of toolchain-based productivity miracle.)