So you can also just use the second command and not set PKG_PATH, or atleast not for every session.
I prefer to do it that way since pkgin has its own repository config, and if I use pkg_add after installing pkgin it'll be to install packages from the pkgsrc and that might clash if PKG_PATH is set.
With PKG_PATH set (he does it in the .profile in the blog post)
pkg_add pkgin becomes pkg_add https://cdn.NetBSD.org/pub/pkgsrc/packages/NetBSD/$(uname -m)/$(uname -r | cut -d_ -f1)/All/pkgin
So you can also just use the second command and not set PKG_PATH, or atleast not for every session.
I prefer to do it that way since pkgin has its own repository config, and if I use pkg_add after installing pkgin it'll be to install packages from the pkgsrc and that might clash if PKG_PATH is set.
I know it seems contrived.
https://www.netbsd.org/docs/pkgsrc/using.html