The text discusses the concept of containers in software development, highlighting their benefits such as reliability and isolation from the environment and infrastructure. However, it also raises concerns about the "unit" of software becoming too large and opaque, making it difficult to identify and address issues with dependencies. The author argues that this has led to a decline in diligence and observance of best practices when it comes to handling packages and dependencies, which can have serious consequences for security and reliability. To mitigate these risks, developers need to be more diligent about questions of security, provenance, reliability, and availability when it comes to packages and dependencies.