[khedoros1]

> If you upgraded that decade-old computer to a secure OS then it will almost certainly run terribly.

If I chose to put Windows 10 on my 9 year old desktop, it'd run better than Windows 10 on the laptop I bought a year ago as a netbook-style machine. Anything that can run Windows 7 well can run Windows 10 well, and machines that would be well-suited to Windows 7 weren't uncommon a decade ago.

But that's all beside the point. The point is that having a single source for software to run on a piece of hardware, and not having control over access to your software, puts a hard upper limit on how long a device will be useful. It's more practical to do something useful on the 18 year old Windows 98 machine I've got at home than my iPod Touch that's half that age. My Android tablet is just a couple of years younger; it's still a useful device because I can keep around backups of apks, download software from project pages, or add one of several app stores that still provide working software.