Except that you are getting this with the open-source ecosystem (PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB, Cassandra, Redis, Docker, Kubernetes, Openstack, the entire Linux kernel, Gitlab, Jenkins, Nginx, HAProxy, Node.js, Python, Golang, Git, I could go on and on).

Major corporations have a big stake in open-source (either as providers or users, often both, of the above software).

I could forgive the ignorance in 2000 (or possibly someone who is 100% a Windows desktop developper and doesn't look at what is happening anywhere else), except that are are in 2018...

My bad - I didn't catch that. I've been an Arch user for a long while now, so I can't really comment on updates in the LTS Linux distros.

Well, I can. It's sometimes baffling how they'll pull security updates from upstream but useful features in a minor program, you'll have to wait until next release, which could be anywhere from 6 months to a year later.

JWZ did a rather infamous writeup on the policies of Deb based systems.

Sounds like you've got a faulty laptop. Also why are you using an old iso. The latest iso's have the updates embedded.
So you use command line to do everything but disabling the updates is too complicated for you

It's free. And mint ain't any worse than windows. POL is the biggest PITA but only with some things. Works pretty good for most... wish they'd refine it.
That's because they aren't used to it. It's a matter of transitioning to it. Try MINT. Although I currently recommend staying with 18.3 as 19 has difficulties wtih POL.

I don't know why you'd ever want to disable updates. The security fixes alone makes them a must (for any OS).

In production, you might want to control updates more (but not prevent them completely thanks to the above). For a desktop, exerting a fine-grained control over updates is not worth the bother (not if they are coming from a well-curated repo).

Depends on the level of performance you need. For a physics engine, I could see them do all kinds of low-level trick to optimize hardware per device, but when I worked on networking middleware (9 years ago mind you, but I don't see that landscape changing much), the changes were really along API-lines, for the consoles I worked with anyways (Windows, Xbox and PSP at the time).

Anyways, you need that level of performance optimization for AAA that are pushing performance boundary. Indie titles should really use some kind of multi-platform framework and up their hardware requirements to compensate for the sake of sanity.

Platform-specific code is the worse. Avoid it if you can.

Lol! So, Ubuntu crashes for you, it's Ubuntu's fault. My Windows install goes sideways, it's clearly my laptops fault.

Why am I using an old ISO? Why not? I don't have a great Internet connection, and I'm bandwidth capped, so downloading a 4GB ISO to avoid pulling a few hundred MB's in updates after the install doesn't make sense for me. My Linux install worked fine with an ISO from 2016...

This is only proving my point...

Well, now, I'm pretty convinced that you are just trolling so I'll leave you to it.

In the odd chance that you are really a professional who is not dependant on some open-source projects for your work and decided it would remain so, I'll wish you the best to never lose your current job. You'll have an interesting time finding another one.

Disagreement based on decades of experience != trolling.

I'm not sure what manner of fallacy (There's at least a "No true scotsman", Post Hoc, and strawman in there at casual glance) your followup statement is, but I don't really have the motivation to look it up to further my point.

That last sentence.... LOL! Good grief!

This is why I made that original statement to begin with. Because these sentiments are the ones I commonly see that only solidify the foundation of it.

And therein lies your mistake.

You assume that your technology experience from 20 years ago is highly relevant in the landscape of today.

Quite frankly, beyond the theoretical, a good 80% of the technology specifics of what I knew 15 years ago are useless now.

I've had to reinvent myself... a lot, to stay relevant in my field and be in high demand.

Don’t waste your time with this one Magnitus ;)

At least Magmarock, even if I disagree with most of his posts, try to make supported claims. You can discuss with him.
This other one is a troll, and not even a good one.

Well, you could use a network install or roll your own, but far be it from me to dictate how you go. :p

Jigdo is a great tool for situations like yours: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/JigdoDownloadHowto
It should allow you to upgrade your old ISO to a current one by only downloading the packages that got updated since its build time.