Has anyone ever taken a vendor to court on the basis of consumer rights and not providing security updates and the product therefore not being fit for purpose?
For example, under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 in the UK the product must last for as long as a reasonable person would expect it to, and Apple's interpretation of that is five/six years (see https://www.apple.com/uk/legal/statutory-warranty/).
I'm always tempted by this, I have time, I know people, but the thing is, you agree too far to many contracts by starting to use such a device, that just navigating the initial waters to find a path to sue anyone is a complete non-starter. I'm not able to tilt at this windmill. Hopefully the Purism phone succeeds and I can buy one. Till then ill keep buying a top of the line Apple phone each 4-5 years when support runs out.
If it's anything like Australian Consumer Law, it's really really difficult to sign away those rights. In fact, even attempting to tell a customer that they can sign away those rights can result in company ending fines.
Hmmm, might have to lead with this line of reasoning when I ask Samsung here in Australia why my S6Edge doesn't have an update for this in a reasonable timeframe...
> you agree too far to many contracts by starting to use such a device, that just navigating the initial waters to find a path to sue anyone is a complete non-starter
The Consumer Rights Act 2015 also covers unfair terms in sales contracts (and at least in Scotland EULAs are part of the sales contract, per Beta Computers (Europe) Ltd v Adobe Systems (Europe) Ltd; I don't know the status elsewhere in the UK), and it's quite likely you could just go through most of the possible contractual outs and argue they are unfair terms.
For example, under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 in the UK the product must last for as long as a reasonable person would expect it to, and Apple's interpretation of that is five/six years (see https://www.apple.com/uk/legal/statutory-warranty/).