Comment by lmm

You've got to look at this in a context where platform package managers like apt are simultaneously 1) platform-specific 2) jealous, insisting that every language has to conform to their way of doing things and 3) fundamentally not very good, having very limited ability to do things like install packages for a single user or install multiple versions of the same package. Platform package managers like maven have been far more successful because they provide a much better user experience, and frankly I suspect this is if anything because they're so thoroughly isolated from the platform package manager.