Most of the difference would be in the user interface. Git submodules might actually be a great idea for how to implement it, to encourage hacking on and submitting changes to the libraries themselves.

Git submodules don't provide a very friendly user experience though. You have to know the repository url and manage them separately. It's not terrible, but it's extra work, and doesn't handle loading the library in your own, or dependency management. Ideally, pulling in a package would also result in pulling in all of its dependencies, without pulling in multiple copies of the same library the way npm used to.