The average windows user will benefit greatly in security from the automatic updates, even if one in a million of them will experience their PC's going into infinite reboot cycle due to incompatible update :)
If anything Microsoft doesn't want another XP where people just refuse to update beyond it. Companies (NHS being a prime example) are willing to pay a lot of money just to be supported still on XP
I don't think anyone has a problem with this being the default, because novices need it, but I think people should have the option to turn it off.
If you use Pro you can turn it off in group policy. Same with Cortana, all the sync crap, Windows Defender, and the Store.