> NPM has become the de facto standard for installing any software these days, because it is present on every OS.

That's not remotely true. If there is a standard (which I wouldn't say there is), it's either docker or curl|bash. Nobody is out there using npm to install packages except web devs, this is absolutely ridiculous on Google's part.

they offer npm for the large market of cli users who have it, and curl|bash to those who don’t. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯