[brk]

This isn't really just an Apple mentality though. I have all kinds of old electronics and devices from Google, Samsung, Intel, WD, etc. that all fit this exact same description.

If you've ever tried to run a hardware business (or really any business), you know that it is not financially sound to continue to support old devices that have been superceded (sometimes more than once) by newer products that consumers are currently spending money on.

We can debate if this is the way things should be, the aspect of whether you truly "own" things, software escrow, and on and on. But the phenomenon itself is in no way unique to Apple. If anything, I have found that the usable lifespan of Apple hardware is, on average, longer than the usable lifespan of other name-brand electronics in similar categories.

[ryandrake]

Absolutely, we could easily have any number of killedby[manufacturer] websites. A device being "old" is a common reason/excuse manufacturers use to stop supporting it. Just making the point that Apple is not a special exemption.

[fieryskiff12]

Even in a smaller scale, the VFX consortium had to be created when Sun stopped giving support to that part of Hollywood. Their position in the industry, the trends they set, and the intertwining of software and the "Liberal Arts" they clearly do have power upon, makes them a special exemption. If it was only of hardware they would have been out of business decades ago.

Could delve in the sheer amount of data rot created by it and their drop of 32 bit support, but would be even more broad of it.