The changes in the last year were "soft forks" -- forks that required all miners to upgrade (if they don't, their blocks are ignored), but that do not require merchants/users to upgrade.
For this change the distinction is hardly relevant, since it won't happen unless the merchants/users who run full nodes upgrade first.
A soft and hard for are not comparable.
In a soft fork, it is about getting the _majority_ of _miners_ behind the rule. Every piece of old software keeps working. Depending on the change, it may be advisable for merchants to upgrade to get the extra rules enforced, but those who don't just get dropped to SPV-level security. Nothing will break as long as somewhat more than 50% of hash power enforces the new rule.
In a hard fork, it is about getting _all_ of _everyone_ to change the rule at exactly the same time. Doing a hard fork where not everyone is on the same side, is an outright disaster. Every coin that existed before the fork will be spendable once on every side of the chain. If this happens, it is economic suicide for the system. Sure it may recover after a short while, when people realize to pick the side that most others chose, but it is not something I want to see happening.
The only way a hard fork can be done, is when there is reasonable certainty that all players in the network agree.