Use a stable distribution like Debian and maintenance only happens every 4-5 years, if you don't mind staying with older software.
The problem is: it depends a lot on the specific program whether I want the newest or stay with some older version of some program. Many GNU/Linux distributions make this hard, while Windows makes this easy.
But I'm not here to convince anyone.
Or did you mean that you want to pin an app to a specific version? This can be done also, trivially - not that it is a good idea in general.
Nobody ever disputes that there are workarounds to the default packaging workflows of Linux distros. The problem is, your average user, even technical ones don't want using an OS to be a second job outside their real job.