I disagree that it's necessary to merge pacnew files, read the front page news, or read install messages on updating already installed software. I've been intensely using Arch for a year and a half now. On my own machine, which I turn off several times a day, I have a script that automatically runs updating the system every time I turn it on (several times a day). I rarely merge pacnew files and when I do, it often leads to problems I would not have had if I had simply left them alone. I never read install messages that occur during a system update. I don't read the frontpage news unless there's a problem after an update, and then it has never had anything relevant to tell me. I've only experienced update issues a couple of times in the past 18 months, mostly early on. The last issue happened just in the past couple of weeks, didn't stop me from doing anything but looked ugly, and resolved itself after a few days when updates to the Xfce dev packages came through.
The people I'm doing installs for won't ever be able to solve any real issue with their computer and will therefore come to me everytime. I've tried other solutions to getting them to update their system, and they simply don't do it. Originally I was trying to use the auto-update script, but discovered it's not a robust script and needs to be tweaked for each machine and only really works properly on machines with a fast processor and SSD. That's why I never put it in the AUR. This super simple script and desktop file, when put on a launcher for the Xfce panel, makes updates every bit as simple as in any distro, and they do at least see what's happening whether or not they ever pay attention.
My own experience on Arch tells me there's no real problem doing regular system updates without understanding everything that's going on. When there's a problem, they will come to me and I'll take a look at the pacnew files and pacman.log etc. They don't need to know how to do that and more importantly, don't really seem capable of using a computer at that level. On the rare instance they need new software, they will also reach out to me.
Why didn't I give them Ubuntu? Because Arch actually seems to have less issues than any other distro I've tried, and because for some reason, I'm having 100% success installing Arch while experiencing a lot of trouble installing Ubuntu. It just saves me time to install and maintain Arch. Even though Ubuntu doesn't expect you to manually mess with configuration files or read install notes etc., it has more issues on updates than if you just update Arch ignoring all that.