Cisco has set things up to protect against this by basically killing the secondhand martket. I used to put up with Cisco's "you need to pay for ongoing support

Cisco has set things up to protect against this by basically killing the secondhand martket. I used to put up with Cisco's "you need to pay for ongoing support (SmartNet contracts) to get any updates/firmware - including for bug fixes and firmware upates for the modem etc." even for my home equipment when I had my CCNA and was still drinking the Kool-Aid trying to keep one foot in the Cisco ecosystem. And you couldn't buy used off eBay because they wouldn't sell you that SmartNet contract on it to get the updates/firmware. I had a Cisco 877W modem/router/WiFi for ages back when I had DSL and, not only was it outrageously overpriced (I think I paid like $1000 for it), I also needed to buy SmartNet for it to get the firmware for the modem part of it to work properly with my ISP even new out of the box (Annex N support if I remember correctly). TBH even if Ubiquiti's EdgeRouter stuff was the same price as Cisco I'd still buy it these days if it was my money instead because it is soo liberating to just be able to go to the website and download the firmware updates free forever. My EdgeRouter Lite was not only like 1/8th the cost of an equivilent Cisco but it is still getting free updates without even needing to register a login with them 5 years after I bought it and I haven't had a single problem with it in that time...