[mrweasel]

My 2013 MacBook became so unreliable that it was unworkable. Getting 8 years from a laptop is pretty good, but in terms of speed I could have gone another two years, no problem.

My main concern buying old PC laptops is screen quality. It still possible to buy a laptop with a shitty screen in 2022, even a brand new one.

Company issued laptops are also weird. If you replace laptops every two years, the why buy the top of the line model? Sure some jobs just benefit from the exstra resources, but even many developers could easily do with less.

[ttfkam]

Because the hardware is very rarely the most expensive part of a business, especially in tech. Software developers are paid 50-100x what a laptop costs per year. And if the employee leaves, the laptop goes to a new one. In the meantime, those 2yo laptops the devs had often get passed on to HR, sales, etc. It's not like they get tossed out with the trash.

If getting new hardware makes an employee happy and/or allows them to get a job done even slightly faster, it's basically free to the company, so why not?

A personal machine is a very different cost/benefit calculation to a work box.