This is really not charitable interpretation. Let's take more charitable one where we know that most of dev newcomers flock to JS and expect JS to have things

This is really not charitable interpretation. Let's take more charitable one where we know that most of dev newcomers flock to JS and expect JS to have things like left-pad. While being newcomer is not a bad thing in itself, unfortunately there is a bunch of expectations and things learned in JS ecosystem that are not aging well. I don't think 'rising bar' is the answer as much as going "No Code/Low Code" is. People that are running companies that depend on newcomers will get what they pay for. Companies that hire people with experience won't notice a thing. Since left-pad a lot of people in the trenches of JS are learning that adding any dependency might cost a lot, and now we see more and more of that.