If you don't update, it'll stay usable indefinitely. If you do, you can skim arch-announce in less time than it takes to keep up with the release cycle of any other OS.

In return you'll never need to update a Debian release name in sources.list, click away a nagging update prompt, wait for a double-reboot cycle for some registry changes, or anything of the sort.

Yes, you will need to understand what's on your system to know what news is relevant for you. You automatically will because you set it up yourself.