Maybe you are the kind of user who tends not to notice a change in your experience unless the change prevents you from doing what you want to do. I would like to become more like that, at least for a trial period, so I can compare that way of existing in the world to my current way of existing, but it is not clear to me how to change myself in that way (with the result that I stop noticing details that are irrelevant to the immediate task).
The way I prefer to relate to software is to be constantly running a prediction of what is going to happen on the screen in response to my inputs. If anything unpredictable or surprising happens while I'm using software that is usually predictable (and I'm not on a tight deadline) I usually stop what I'm doing and try to understand the source of the unpredictability enough that it won't surprise me the next time.
Although I do not have that kind of relationship with most of the web sites I visit, I do have that kind of relationship with Emacs (and have for 30 years).
Early last year vscode was my only text editor for a few months, and I don't recall getting significantly annoyed at vscode's unnecessarily invoking my "what just happened?" response, but I haven't used vscode in over a year and the OP makes me very-slightly less likely to use it in the future.
Settings JSON - update.showReleaseNote = false
Settings GUI - Uncheck "Update: Show Release Notes"
It’s nice for power users. I know many people who essentially use vsc as notepad++, and that’s okay. I also know people that drool over change logs and excitedly talk about new features over lunch.
Both are okay, and it’s a spectrum. Use what you think is helpful.