[eropple]

They were lemons at time of sale, though, we just didn't know it yet. Between that and the ecosystem/society argument, I think it's a no-brainer.

> However, how would you feel about legislation that required five years of dealer service to be included with every automobile sale? Or other products in a similar vein?

This analogy doesn't work for me; software bugs are defects, they aren't something getting old and falling apart. I think that a defect in an automobile should be repaired at manufacturer expense whether it's a year old or twenty.

[__jal]

The operative difference is that intelligent adversaries are not coming up with new and better methods of making your bumper fall off.

The economics of providing 5 years of defensive patching on a $100 device simply does not work.

[snuxoll]

Maybe they need to stop shipping a dozen different $100 models with wildly different specifications and come up with a common platform to reduce support costs, like most other industries.

Support costs increase as fragmentation does, it things sold at a reasonable price and without dozens of variations it would be more feasible to maintain longer supported life cycles - but these companies have no incentive to think beyond the next quarter’s earnings call.

[aaron_m04]

> The operative difference is that intelligent adversaries are not coming up with new and better methods of making your bumper fall off.

Not yet.

[crankylinuxuser]

Then maybe they shouldn't be able to make a profit on doing society wrong in the medium or long term.