The author didn't update all dependencies, they just tried running it on a newer version of Node itself. That is definitely a use case included when most people talk about an ecosystem compiling and running fine after several years.

In some ecosystems, yes, backwards compatibility is a given, but not in most. Python versions behave in much the same way as Node, with you having to make sure you're using the same Python version this time as last time in order to be able to install the same dependency versions. Java has been better in recent years, but Java 8->9 can take several hours to get working on even a small project.