She has a point. Updates and nagging dialogs have a cost which is higher for non-IT people. Imagine your old neighbor being confused if he should allow that update or not and being stressed about because these update requests don't stop coming in.
> Software is done, like mowing the lawn is done.
We live in an imperfect world, if we want to keep ourselves safe and prevent bad actors out of our data/technology. Updates are a part of the process. You don't mow your lawn once, it has to be maintained. Which is the same as software.
This is something that we would be all better for if we could teach this concept to everybody so that updates are just a normal part of life.
As a dev on a mid-size project, I'd say that those UI changes often have two sides, with people who will also complain "why can't you just fix/change X, it's such a small change, but so annoying". Everyone wants their issue fixed, but not the issues of others.
Our project went from having two versions (stable and old-version), to just one, because the community of users had split into two, with much fewer developers working on fixing the latest version (because their company mostly supported users on the old version, not deploying new projects on the latest version, very understandably risk-averse people).
Removing the old-version made a few developers angry, but 80% of them rallied and now the project is much more sustainable (i.e. we're not big enough to afford the split). Eventually we introduced a paid version of the old-version supported for 6 months, with a stretch goal to extend to 12 months if people supported it. Only a handful are paying for it. Others are now happy on the latest, which became more robust as more people are using it.
Old UI support has zero cost to it.
Arbitrary new UIs have significant cost to them.
There are also degrees to which it's more difficult to memorize two loosely related things than it is to memorize two completely separate ones, because your brain keeps trying to treat them as similar even when they are not.
There are really two distinct types of updates - one that's patching up security holes and ensures the software keeps running on modern systems; the other adds and removes features. They ought to be distinct.
The lawn analogy is not apt, because software left alone does not change at all. It's one of the most stable things in the universe. The environment changes, slowly, and at some point adaptations are needed.
Let me give you an example, I’m a casual gamer, I don’t play every day, sometimes a week or two could pass without me playing with my console, but almost every single time I turn it on it will get at least one update, for the console itself, my controller, the game I wanted to play, I guess that’s one of the reasons I don’t turn my console that often. I miss the old days when my NES would wait for me, he was always ready!
However I think it's not about teaching people. What about children and the elderly? You can't teach them.
After all, are computers and software specialized tools for professionals? This has not been true for the majority since the millennium the least.
I have to admit that I don't have an easy answer. I just see that the relentless changes and updates are not well received by many people and I am afraid they aren't completely off in this case.