November 10, 2025 at 5:09:13 PM UTC

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The Ruby ecosystem is going through some pretty hefty turmoil in an attempt to rescue and restore the integrity of their community.

I’m even seeing some good efforts in PHP-land to better distance itself from the vacuum of stable leadership in WordPress too.

Is there any such movement in JavaScript (the same problems exist)? The biggest pattern I’m seeing is a *huge* centralization in project funding!

10 replies

ppk 🇪🇺 5 hr later

@zachleat My feeling is that the JavaScript world was always much less centralized than PHP or Ruby, and thus does not need to be saved from a more-or-less central authority gone rogue.
Centralization in project funding: any article that describes the outlines?
1. Daniel Rotter 22 hr later
  
  @ppk @zachleat That's not my feeling at all. If the NPM registry would be gone that would be a huge problem for almost all JS projects. We've seen that to a certain extent already with just single packages being removed or hijacked multiple times.
2. Zach Leatherman 1 day later
  
  @ppk thinking primarily about Vercel’s funding of Next, Svelte, and now Nuxt
  1. Richard MacManus 1 day later
    
    @zachleat @ppk I also worry about React and Next being the default in LLMs like GPT-5, which means more and more of that code being spat out into the web. I guess the one saving grace for JavaScript is the ECMAScript standard seems to be managed by quite a diverse crowd (e.g. this post by @marypcbuk : https://thenewstack.io/javascript-standards-update-whats-new-in-ecmascript-2025/)
    1. ppk 🇪🇺 2 days later
      
      @ricmac @zachleat @marypcbuk The LLM problem is real, but I see it as an extension of the recruiting advantage React-based companies claim to have. LLMs may make the problem more massive, but not fundamentally different.
      I don't know enough about PHP and Ruby to decide whether Vercel's sponsorship is equivalent to the hold DHH and Wordpress have/had.
      1. Mary Branscombe 8 days later
        
        @ppk @ricmac @zachleat I looked at the nextjs ecosystem last year before the first time the Vercel CEO gave customers a reason to leave; there have been more moves since to make nextjs work better other places because, to the original question, there is a whole lot more governance in JavaScript itself and (despite Brendan Eich) a lot fewer patience with problematic people. ie I've seen a LOT of people leaving Vercel because of this and I may be missing something but can't offhand think of other examples of what I see people call 'fashtech' that involve JavaScript. the funding is maybe a bit more secure because of the browsers and Bloomberg, so maybe less opportunity for an Anduril to buy its way in to projects with sponsorship
        https://thenewstack.io/opennext-gets-closer-to-making-next-js-truly-portable/
    2. Mary Branscombe 8 days later
      
      @ricmac @zachleat @ppk have we been having the same conversation with @slightlyoff about these patterns? ;)
Mat “Wilto” Marquis 7 hr later

@zachleat I hear what you’re saying, and I agree: it’s time for me to step up and become JavaScript’s Big Shithead.
1. Zach Leatherman 1 day later
  
  @Wilto look, you have my vote!
  …wait
Derek Odegard 7 hr later

@zachleat Say more about the centralization? What or who is driving it?