People who complain about this need to get over it

There's upsides to everything.

If the original text bothers you or someone else, then simply don't read it.

Who decides what needs to be changed and what is offensive? That is the primary problem with this sort of censorship.

To you, it's 'just fiction' and you therefore deem it to be of little regard. To me, it's our collective cultural heritage. To the people in publishing houses making these decisions, it's just commerce.

I can entirely support flagging up things that might offend. If someone wants to stick a label on the front of Christie's novels that says something like 'This work is a product of its time and may contain language that is outdated and that some readers may find offensive', then... fine.

People should be able to make informed decisions about the media they consume. But altering texts in this manner is the domain of bean-counters and executives who care little or nothing for culture or art and care everything for profit. I agree with ThetaSigma: it's vandalism.

How would you feel if you wrote a book or whatever and someone changed it without your permission?

I hear you, but to be that bitch, context always matter.

What is being changed and why is important, it's not always simply a matter of "things need to change and adapt and therefore so do we." Sometimes there's a huge moral or historical message that's completely lost or skewed when things are changed unnecessarily - which then renders adapting it in the first place useless.

I don't think everything is precious and needs preservation, not to mention that when it comes to art, there is no pleasing everyone and there never will be. But to change something without intent and then losing something intentional in the process is just as irksome as people who bitch and moan about every adaptation.