There will be people saying negative things about any change. Often they'll be right, whether for the right reasons or the wrong ones. I wasn't asserting that no one predicted it, I was trying to get at why the parent was asserting it was terrible.

I haven't watched the video, but at a skim the article raises quite a few points, most to all of which have nothing to do with the start menu in particular.

Removing the start menu is more like changing how the ignition works (hasn't stopped the sale of Priuses) or changing how you shift gears (also has happened plenty of times).

Familiarity is certainly a consideration, but it's not the only consideration, and when you elevate it too highly you get stuck unable to fix anything. Mind you, I'm not saying they didn't - in retrospect - underweight it. There is certainly evidence they did. Though I'm honestly not sure to just what degree the backlash is vocal-minority versus generally felt. In my own (few) experiences with modern Windows systems, I wasn't shocked by the lack of a Start Menu - but my computer hasn't had a start menu for the better part of a decade so I'm obviously highly unrepresentative.