Question has been raised on Pip per another person, in may 2023: pypa/pip#12022

You can uninstall packages, and compat a "reduce version" of WinPython.
Intermediate size of Winpython have never been so popular.

The trend of ever-bigger distro comes from:

• more package with nice functionalities
• each pack gets bigger over time
• Cpython-3.12 in particular didn't care about the size of their generated package
• difficulty to abandon heavy packages: Qt5, Torch

Your other alternative is to :

• rely on a small WinPythonDot (that would still grow a bit when "JIT" will be included) + trusted package source (to come)
• count on cpython taking the size matter challenge, but it's not in their paid priorities yet

As far as I understand the *.pyc files resp. pycache folder contains pre-compiled *.py lib files.
What happens if I deleted them all?
Are they - only if they are accessed by *.py scripts - automatically re-compiled and real-time created again?

And what about the other invers side:
Are the *.py source files in "Lib" folder only for compilation?
So if all *.pyc files remain I could delete all the *.py stuff in "Lib" (sub)folders..
Does that harm the running of my user *.py scripts?

for now, you have the solution to get a small winpython "dot", and get whatever you want in the requirements with hash after

see https://github.com/winpython/winpython/releases/tag/15.3.20250425final

you will just miss pandoc.exe