On the software side, it would be nice of the developers to do so, no harm to them and a great benefit to those still using the program. Now on the hardware si

On the software side, it would be nice of the developers to do so, no harm to them and a great benefit to those still using the program. Now on the hardware side[0] there's a mismatch in incentives: an otherwise functioning piece of hardware is unable to perform certain tasks (some that even were advertised at the time of purchase) due to changes in the software or it not being compatible to updates elsewhere in the ecosystem[3], all of which could easily be fixed with software updates. The companies selling these obviously say to buy the newest version, but that feels like a waste of resources and money to me. As much as I try voting with my wallet, I think this is getting worse with more "smart" devices, where there is little choice. [0]: I noticed this post is right below a post on a GPS issue concerning a Garmin smartwatch I own [1], that might get this update because a famous blogger posted about it, but not other fixes, like podcasts since Catalina [2] [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25620372 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25620372 [2]: https://forums.garmin.com/apps-software/mac-windows-software/f/garmin-express/234966/garmin-express-and-mangled-podcasts https://forums.garmin.com/apps-software/mac-windows-software... [3]: I have an iPad 3 lying around, which is mostly useless to my workflow because it doesn't sync the Safari bookmarks, can't install an alternative browser and doesn't include most icloud features. Another example are routers and other consumer networking equipment, that frequently end up not getting updates soon after release.