It's absolutely terrible. Even on custom ROMs, which can extend the life of a phone quite a lot, the latest wave of obsolescence comes from Android dropping sup

It's absolutely terrible. Even on custom ROMs, which can extend the life of a phone quite a lot, the latest wave of obsolescence comes from Android dropping support for old, of course un-updatable kernels. It's absolutely not the price of progress, it's the price manufacturers not caring (why would they? people have already bought the device and they'll buy more short-lived devices) and there being no legislation to make them care. With mainline kernels many phones that are a decade old would be perfectly usable today.