An alternative would be to introduce a „marketing version „number independent of the semver version.

Usually there are packages with big api differences for the first 3 versions or so. The major version number is used to discuss bugs, development, etc. New versions usually entail a beta period that results in two active versions for a while.

This would allow the major version to be used more often for breaking changes to help with automated dependency update tools.

PoatgreSQL used to do this and they abandoned it for good reasons. Too much bikesheddinr about when the marketing number should be incremrnted and too many confused users who (with good reason) thought the marketing number actually meant something.