[dragonwriter]

There used to be a lot less expectation of post-sale maintenance of consumer software in the era where sales rather than subscriptions were the norm. There was also tolerance for higher up-front prices, and for much of that period sales depended on marketing through and validation by a narrow set of relatively trusted discovery channels, which customer the perceived risk to buyers. Now everything is untrusted, no one wants to pay much upfront but everyone expects ongoing support over they've got the thing. I’m not saying subscription is the only thing that works, but it's pretty easy to see that the calculus facing the average vendor has shifted tremendously over time.

[devmor]

fwiw the expectation of post-sale maintenance would not be nearly as egregious if companies were not regularly pushing new updates that cause new issues

it is a problem of ones own making

[earthnail]

Well, on mobile the underlying operating system is moving so fast that companies must continue to update their apps or else they stop working. It's the absolute inverse situation to the backwards compatibility story of Windows. That kind of backwards compatibility is a wet dream for every mobile developer.

[devmor]

I don't believe this is generally true. I have automatic updates for apps disabled on both my Android phones and iOS devices, and regularly use some apps that were installed years ago.

There are obviously going to be some exceptions for apps that rely on specific types of system services, of course.

[petralithic]

You're not the average user if you have auto updates disabled. Notice you also said "some" apps, well, most do need to keep up with OS updates or fall behind.

[devmor]

I did not claim to be the average user. Most of my apps do not get updated unless they rely on APIs that force them to update. Furthermore, I have several android apps I published over 15 years ago that still function without updates on the newest version of Android.

What updates do you think need to be made to not “fall behind”? There aren’t many other than things like integration with Google Play services or App Store subscription billing.