I think that's the big problem with digesting reactions to change. Sometimes a company goes and just arbitrarily changes something because 1 or 2 people feel like it makes sense. Then everyone's paying for it.

But other times they do UX testing and over time discover that B is better than A. But throw that in front of a new user and it's initially harder and therefor frustrating.

If the driving paradigm is "if it ain't broke, don't fix it," that's going to lead to a stagnant product. Because sometimes it ain't broke, but it also ain't ideal and people are just used to it.

So when there are fundamental changes to UX beyond color scheme - and perhaps even including - I think there needs to be detailed communication as to why and why it's better now.

yes, I know the story. I've heard it a million times. Like I said, people don't like change.

No, people don't like having their time wasted by clueless product managers who are trying to justify their existence with cosmetic updates.

People don't, on the whole, complain about things that genuinely make their lives better.

Just checking: Are you saying people are wrong to not like change? Or are you saying that it's uninteresting when people dislike change because it's a predictable response?

People don't like slick trendy shallow cargo cult designs made by imitating popular fads from big corporations based on marketing campaigns dreamed up by advertising executives, in the place of hard earned empirically tested iteratively refined interfaces, made by applying, trading off and balancing user interface design principles based on decades of research by scientists and feedback from customers.