It’s certainly possible for changes in UI to significantly harm productivity, but you would need to systematically gather evidence to know if this is happening. Whether it’s happening is almost completely independent of anyone’s individual feeling of frustration at needing to learn about and adapt to new UI changes.
But more importantly, they existence of change is inherently important to the large-scale advancement of computing over time. Even if it is the case that a certain UI overhaul of a major operating system harmed productivity, the solution is not “permanently halt all software changes after this specific version that I have learned and enjoy using.” We ought to reject arguments that forced stasis is the solution any time changes introduce risk.
But more importantly, they existence of change is inherently important to the large-scale advancement of computing over time. Even if it is the case that a certain UI overhaul of a major operating system harmed productivity, the solution is not “permanently halt all software changes after this specific version that I have learned and enjoy using.” We ought to reject arguments that forced stasis is the solution any time changes introduce risk.