There should be the php equivalent of LTS (long term support). After such a long time on php 5.. it felt like one of the features of the language was stability. Your old code ran. 7 was much faster so easy sell to upgrade. the versions obsolescence treadmill has begun.. I like the language but having to upgrade this frequently (every couple years) is a bit much.
We should just stop messing with it. PHP is what it is, if you want something better/different build another HACK.
At this point the language works and works well. Everyone knows where the sharp edges are. The only people who are unhappy are the people who are forced into being PHP devs by $dayjob and would prefer a different language.
You are extremely mistaken. I love PHP and am quite happy with how it's evolving into a more concise and well defined language.
If you don't like it you are free to continue using an old version.
Expecting a language to stagnate because you don't like learning new things is asinine and doesn't hold water anywhere in the programming world except among the laziest of code monkeys.
https://www.php.net/supported-versions.php