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Maybe. For example, GCC 5 changed the default for C from gnu89 to gnu11 and that broke the build of some Finnish amateur project:

https://lkml.org/lkml/2014/10/19/94

That's why projects that use GCC or a compatible compiler should use the -std option to set the targeted standard and not rely on the default.

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Pretty much. Taking the "will this break stuff?" worry to the logical extreme would mean that gcc should default to a pre-standarization K&R dialect and g++ to a cfront dialect contemporary with 1st edition Stroustrup.

The world moves on. Though if you're an active project, moving along with the world is probably a better option than throwing in --std=c++really-old and deliberately refusing to use new stuff.

Forcing the update of old code doesn't make me sad. Considering new versions of the language should be improvements over previous ones, it may be a good side effect. If your code breaks with the new compiler and language standard, just change your build options to explicitly use the previous one.

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