Yes, those pesky stable distributions that prioritise bug fixes are clearly to blame. While it might be annoying for you (and me to some extent), some people actually need to have a stable system. If I was installing a GNU/Linux distro for a family member I would pick Debian or openSUSE Leap over a more rapidly updating distribution -- I just got burned by such a distro yesterday and I'm still reinstalling my machine.
Ah, poor maintainer. Releasing software with a self-destruct timer is not an acceptable way to "tell people to upgrade".