Yes, but the problem is that the casual user will view this as planned obsolescence rather than a delicate tradeoff between performance and new features for older devices. Slowing down old iPhones was done to preserve battery life, but users did not see it that way, which led to massive backlash. Sure, Apple, should've communicated its reasoning and decision making before (which they have now done), but the casual user just doesn't care enough about the nuances here.
I think slow phone is more planned-obsolencence-y compared to "no OS upgrade, but phone works just as it did since the last supported upgrade - features and speed". I don't think the majority of users would know there is a new version out if they didn't get the upgrade nag-screens.
> 3rd party apps would also be frozen and start to fail.
Only if they use online services that are taken down; not all apps are like this. Even if they are, it is still a better scenario than throwing the entire phone away because it's unusably slow or unsafe to use due to lack of security fixes.
