Absolutely. Yes, they have many PMs, but thay can always cache downloads in home/.cache/pip or appdata/local/python/pip-cache-common. Packages don’t change so there’s no need for separate caches, just dump them all in one folder and add basic locks on it.
I wonder how much traffic pressure pip remotes could release by just getting caching right.
Having a way to install all packages and all versions of Python somewhere central, and referring to them both as a combination in a virtual environment, would be fantastic. It's nice that an ecosystem of tools has built into this gap, but it does make good Python practice less approachable, as there are so many options.
I wonder how much traffic pressure pip remotes could release by just getting caching right.