Installation and Basics of Animation Nodes Addon in Blender 2.8

Gottfried Hofmann writes:
The Animation Nodes addon for Blender is a very powerful toolbox for motion graphics and visual scripting. Learn now to install and run them in this new tutorial by BlenderDiplom:

Can someone remind us why this addon isn’t yet included with Blender by default, even if not implicitly enabled? Animation nodes feel like they shouldn’t even be an addon at all, but a default feature perhaps replacing the old and limited NLA editor.