TLDR: TC39 and NodeJS people are very friendly, and are cooperating to bring native ES modules into NodeJS ASAP. The delay is due to technical obstacles, and not politics/philosophy/power plays. Some progress has been made, and smart guys&gals are working to make this integration seamless for all complex edge cases, although Node may end up using a different file extension for pure ES modules (.ejs). Currently no timeframe is available, even as a rough estimate.