Not arguing with your point about Google, but isn't Apple very often accused of forced obsolescence through updates to their phones? Is there any truth to the accusations of "running slower and dying faster" after a new model releases?
Nothing at all like what Google has done for the Pixel 4a and 6a. They intentionally make the battery life so short after 400 charge cycles (maybe a year's worth of charging?) that it only lasts a few hours. They'll replace the battery only "in eligible locations and while battery supplies last."
For Apple, each iOS release is more demanding than the last. Then compound that with batteries produce less current as they age. So, the CPU can't run quite as fast because it can't draw as high of current for older batteries. The alternative is to let the CPU try to ramp to max and cause the CPU to error/crash. It was mostly a messaging failure, and the battery health info/settings got significantly improved because of it.
Communication wise, the whole thing (4a in my case, but the others seemed similar) was a disaster. But they offered to fix it for free (via battery swap)
The increased update timelines by Google, Samsung and others roughly coincided with EU legislation coming into effect that mandates 5 years of updates after end of sales. We'll see.
Correction: if the manufacturer chooses to provide updates, and they don't have to, they must continue to make those updates available for five years after end of sales.
In other words, manufacturers aren't required to publish updates at all, but if they do provide updates they have to make them available to users for five years after they stop sales. This only stops the case where a manufacturer ships a device and publishes updates for the device, but then takes those updates offline after they stop selling the device (but before 5 years is up).
Google promised their Nexus phones would get new versions of Android for X years then, after selling a bunch of them, just changed their mind.
I'm having a hard time googling it since every result that comes up is about Google cancelling Nexus phones entirely way back when, but I remember a lot of Nexus users were kind of PO'ed about it.
Google’s hardware track record is a joke compared to Apple.