Bugzilla

(In reply to John Bieling (:TbSync) from comment #1)
> We already have this request:
> https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1531786
> Would that be not better?

IMHO it would not be better (in every case).

Your aim is to force users to have the latest major version, which is considered as "stable" by Thunderbird developers. This approach has been used from 68 to 78. The Enigmail to integrated OpenPGP example should be a "good" negative example for the user experience with the developers decision, when a new version line should be "stable" an auto updates got enabled.
The situation to have only the yet existing simple "on"/"off" policy forces users to install all updates manually (when they use the yet only existing policy to disable updates completely), or to accept ALL automatically installed updates.
* The first choice (disable all) leads to not installed minor security updates for many people, because of "not going the manually update path" out of laziness or just not being informed about minor updates.
* The second choice (enable all automatically updates) leads to frustration, when the major update is maybe surprisingly installed. The solution in Bug 1531786 should be additional to this RFE here, because Adddon incompatibility is not the only reason for staying in a old ESR line.

(In reply to John Bieling (:TbSync) from comment #1)
> We already have this request:
> https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1531786
> Would that be not better?

IMHO it would not be better (in every case).

Your aim is to force users to have the latest major version, which is considered as "stable" by Thunderbird developers. This approach has been used from 68 to 78. The Enigmail to integrated OpenPGP example should be a "good" negative example for the user experience with the developers decision, when a new version line should be "stable" and auto updates got enabled.
The situation to have only the yet existing simple "on"/"off" policy forces users to install all updates manually (when they use the yet only existing policy to disable updates completely), or to accept ALL automatically installed updates.
* The first choice (disable all) leads to not installed minor security updates for many people, because of "not going the manually update path" out of laziness or just not being informed about minor updates.
* The second choice (enable all automatically updates) leads to frustration, when the major update is maybe surprisingly installed. The solution in Bug 1531786 should be additional to this RFE here, because Adddon incompatibility is not the only reason for staying in a old ESR line.