[huhtenberg]

>You do realise that would probably increase the amount of customer support cases raised, from confused/angry users

No, it won't.

It's an urban legend.

For every support request that cannot be answered from a stock pile of answers, the first reply is "update to the latest version and then come back." and not once did I see anyone ever complain about it (leave alone become angry) in my 20+ years in IT business. Never. Not a single complaint. Those who can upgrade will upgrade when asked.

[lokedhs]

That depends on the industry. I have worked with support for about as long as you, and many clients wants to find a solution that they can use until they upgrade (since the upgrade process can take quite some time if you have lots of dependent software that needs validating).

[huhtenberg]

Sure, there are clients like that and those who can't upgrade due to internal policies, QA restrictions, etc.

Point being is that the extra load from having to deal with clients on outdated versions is insubstantial and it certainly does not justify force-shoveling updates down everyone's throats.