This seems like a serious issue for the environment by forcing hardware into landfills.
I wonder what the landscape is like in Europe for things like this. I know some countries are more diligent about physical products having a longer useful life than others.
Here’s a thought: require such manufactures to completely recycle their discarded equipment. Suddenly reselling their ‘old’ equipment as refurbished at lower costs is a cost cutting option.
How does that work? Does the user have to pay to send it back to the manufacturer or does the user have to pay? If the user does I can see a lot of them throwing it in the bin because it's cheaper. Also recycling often means just melting down the metal case and binning all of the insides.
You can make a market of it. Make it possible to transfer the obligations of recycling to third parties with necessary oversight and assets necessary to do the job completely. The responsibility still stays with the manufacturer. etc. see the comment with a link
I wonder what the landscape is like in Europe for things like this. I know some countries are more diligent about physical products having a longer useful life than others.