Text editors There are many and varied, But Visual Studio Code from Microsoft is the one installed on many of the developers' computers. As for the reasons, I can only confirm mine: it is an editor that already works for a long time after installing it from scratch, and can be converted into a kind IDE if the necessary extensions are installed. It's good, but users of "old" Linux distributions will have to look for alternatives or stay on an unupdated version.
The January 2024 release, Visual Studio Code 1.86, has increased the minimum requirements for this popular text editor, and now requires at least glib 2.28. We are not going to explain here how a Linux-based operating system is built, but we will say that there are parts, like those libraries, that are part of its base. Ubuntu 18.04 uses glibc 2.27, so it does not have what is necessary to open Visual Studio Code v1.86.
Visual Studio Code 1.86 requires glibc 2.28
Although here we are talking more about Ubuntu 18.04, which is what mentions Joey Sneddon from OMG! Ubuntu! the problem will be present in any "old" distribution, see the quotes, you can't use glibc 2.28. The alternatives seem to remain in updating the operating system or staying in Visual Studio Code 1.85, valid for any system that can no longer handle v1.86.
Ubuntu 18.04 will be supported until 2028, but the support that Canonical provides for its LTS versions from 5 years old only covers security patches. In fact, even if we were within those first 5 years, libraries like glibc are not usually updated either.
Why stick to “old” versions?
When I write "old" or "ancient" I do it in quotes because they are not that old. Windows 10 came out in 2015 and is just an older version than the newer Windows 11. What Microsoft no longer supports is what is already about 12 years old (Windows 8.1), but we cannot compare Linux with other operating systems.
Regarding the question, there are mainly companies or projects that can decide stay on a less new version because it is stable and they don't need the latest of the latest. Updating in these cases can be a headache, and they may prefer to delay that moment as long as possible. The problem comes when there are developers who, to release some ballast, abandon support for one or more components.
As for what you lose, well, new functions that you will probably never use, so perhaps it is best to stick to v1.85.