Just install an LTS kernel instead of the latest one. Unless your hardware was made literally yesterday you'll be alright, and the number and frequency of updates isn't far from, say, Ubuntu at all.
Also use archfi. It's a super easy and reliable way to get an Arch install going.
That's the thing, depending on what packages you use, my experience has been that the majority of the updates are kernel adjacent. Going to an LTS kernel has dramatically reduced the frequency for me, but YMMV.
I just use Fedora with dnf-automatic now so I don't have to update manually. Bleeding edge enough for me.
Do they have a minimal iso? I'd love to try it but I'm not using GNOME.
The Fedora minimal install is kinda bad in my opinion, but if you want to try it, it should be available from the netinstall iso.