I think what you're attributing to frugality might be a more a matter of age? Many older folks are just wary of change.
I'm not that old, but every time I upgrade my PC or phone, some of my workflows break and I need to pointlessly re-learn things I'd rather not re-learn. UI buttons get moved around, icons change, some settings are removed and others are added... this was exciting the first ten or twenty times, but it's just tiring now.
Basically, I'm at this stage in life where my reaction to systemd wasn't "oh wow, this is progress" but "ugh, I need to learn how to start, stop, or modify services again". In another ten years, I'll probably just say "no, I'm not doing this again, just let me use my old computer for as long as possible".
> my reaction to systemd wasn't "oh wow, this is progress" but "ugh, I need to learn how to start, stop, or modify services again"
I must be young at heart while >60 years old; my reaction was "why is everybody whining about it, it's pretty nice, I like it". Same with jj vs git, jj is amazing!
It's definitely varies by person. I'm much more like the GP where relearning how to do basic things I already know how to do is one of the absolute last things I want to spend my time on, but I know plenty of people who are the opposite. Newness and novelty are genuine features for some, and that's totally fine.
The annoying thing is that the latter group is over-represented in tech and a lot of core products like phones force people into that path. Most of the non-tech people I know couldn't care less about the latest iphone/android update,they just want the damn buttons to stay the same so they can do the stuff they were doing yesterday. But the only two phone platforms both change their UX regularly and users just have to go along with it.
I am with you on UI updates, just moving things around and re-skinning the UI without useful functionality additions make me mad often. But then I grind my teeth and bear it.
Lots of discussions on HN about it recently [1], [2], I heard of it right here. It works on git repositories, so it's very easy to try.
For me, the killer feature is updating some commit deep inside some feature branch, and all child commits and branches get auto-updated, no more faffing with endless rebases. Also conflict handling is so much more pleasant than git's.
Possibly there’s an element to this. The iPhone SE still has the home button, which may have been a factor when she bought it. And my father was a bit put off by some of the bells and whistles on luxury cars.
I'm not that old, but every time I upgrade my PC or phone, some of my workflows break and I need to pointlessly re-learn things I'd rather not re-learn. UI buttons get moved around, icons change, some settings are removed and others are added... this was exciting the first ten or twenty times, but it's just tiring now.
Basically, I'm at this stage in life where my reaction to systemd wasn't "oh wow, this is progress" but "ugh, I need to learn how to start, stop, or modify services again". In another ten years, I'll probably just say "no, I'm not doing this again, just let me use my old computer for as long as possible".