How dare they discontinue support on an OS that they've given you a free replacement for??? Really? When MS completely kills the XP updates do you really think

How dare they discontinue support on an OS that they've given you a free replacement for??? Really? When MS completely kills the XP updates do you really think they will start handing out free copies of Win8.1? How the fudge is this something that Apple gets away with when nobody else upgrades you to a pay-for, latest OS for free? Yeah, it sucks when software becomes unsupported and you might have to update or change in the smallest degree and there are plenty of reason to hate Apple (stupid walled garden, OpenNI, etc) but this isn't one of those reason.