<i>The big change was string&#x2F;byte-array typing, which was a mess in Python 2 and was cleaned up in Python 3.</i><p>And made worse in some cases (e.g. <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;legacy.python.org&#x2F;dev&#x2F;peps&#x2F;pep-0461&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;legacy.python.org&#x2F;dev&#x2F;peps&#x2F;pep-0461&#x2F;</a>). Even aside from that, I would argue that the benefits of cleaning up Unicode didn&#x27;t come close to the cost of breaking everyone&#x27;s code and fragmenting the language for 7+ years.