The point is that you don't have to use it. If you can't be bothered to learn a simple new feature then just keep doing it the old way; your code will still work. I don't even understand the complaint; are they never supposed to change anything? It's totally optional; even if most of the community goes down that direction you don't have to.

Beyond that, hooks are super simple and the complainers are just making a big deal out of nothing. They are just callback functions that you implement outside of a class instead of overloading arbitrary method identifiers like "componentDidUpdate".

You also don't have to use it.

That's quite hyperbolic. Functional components have existed in React for a long time, hooks are just adding existing concepts (state and lifecycle operations) to them.

We will have to agree to disagree. IMO the compositional paradigm of hooks is radically different than using classes for example.