You are correct, it would be hard to live without NuGet when writing .NET applications.
The parent is really full of it. Having written several large C++ applications on Windows, a package manager would of been incredibly useful. Having to track down native dependencies and manage platforms/architectures is incredibly difficult and annoying without one.
If you write major C++ applications and do not desire a package manager either you have serious NiH syndrome and write everything yourself or just like wasting time.
>Isn't the Nuget package manager becoming increasing more popular on .Net / Windows environments?
I do not know how popular it is exactly (how can you?), but I am willing to bet money on the fact that the vast majority of Windows developers do not use it.
I've used Node extensively on Linux but working with Node + Windows (with the NPM package manager) in the last few months has been pretty smooth too.
I fail to understand why you think package managers are a Linux-only phenomenon.